April 2021
Always keen to innovate, the ICAEW recently digitised its learning materials. Here we look at what’s new, how it works and why the changes have been made.
Many students may already be familiar with digital textbooks from their further education, so it was a natural next step for ICAEW to publish all of its learning materials for 2021 exams onwards in digital format.
As well as being better for the environment – saving 262 tonnes of paper each year – the ICAEW Bookshelf is more convenient and accessible for students, with the study manual, study guide, syllabus, and skills and technical knowledge grids all within one workbook that, together with the question bank, can be accessed anywhere in the world and from any device.
It’s intuitive and easy to highlight text, make notes and quickly search for words and phrases.
You can adjust settings such as text size and background colour to suit your needs and there is even a read-aloud ‘text to speech’ option. The digital learning materials have been integrated into the exam software, so during open-book exams, you can access your own learning materials, notes and highlights using the ICAEW Bookshelf. For other exams you will be able to access clean, unannotated copies of permitted texts, too.
“There were lots of reasons to go digital,” says Shaun Robertson, Director, Education and Qualifications at ICAEW. “The key thing for students is that the exam is digital, so if you’re practicing questions ready for the exam, you should be using learning materials from a digital platform too. It’s reflective of the workplace too: most information now is accessed online.”
As with all ACA developments, the digital learning materials have been introduced following a meticulous process of consultation with students, employers and training providers, as well as testing and live pilots. The feedback has been positive and supportive.
Find out more about digital learning materials here.
• Thanks to the ICAEW for this article
