About Biz/ed
Biz/ed is a free online service for students, teachers and lecturers of business, economics, accounting, leisure and recreation and travel and tourism.
Biz/ed History
Since its launch in January 1996, Biz/ed has established itself as the primary provider of Internet-based learning materials for the economics and business education community. The number of visitors to the site has been growing rapidly and it now regularly receives over 3 million page accesses per month. The site has been nominated for a number of awards:
- The BETT awards in 1999
- The Becta / Guardian Web awards in 2002
- The Virtual Factory was awarded a MERLOT learning and teaching award in July 2002
- A Webby Awards Honoree in 2006
In November 2002, Biz/ed became a JISC service. Under service funding, the Biz/ed Web site was able to provide access to high quality Web based learning materials, as well as extend the range of products it offered.
In August 2006, Biz/ed was bought by Thomson Learning (now Cengage Learning), the leading provider of learning solutions to higher and further education and corporate training markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Biz/ed and Cengage Learning will now be able to develop an electronic platform for the delivery of new educational content, resources and programs to students, professors and institutions throughout the world. At the same time, the Biz/ed resources that have proved so popular in the past will continue to be developed, offering an ever-increasing range of resources in its specialist areas.
What we offer
Biz/ed is targeted at students and teachers in the post-16 education sector, covering schools, FE colleges, universities and beyond. The site offers support for economics, business, accounting, leisure and recreation and travel and tourism at many different levels including AVCE, AS and A2 level, International Baccalaureate, HNC, HND and MBA.
The Biz/ed site is a unique combination of primary and secondary teaching and learning resources. Resource discovery is integrated with simulations, worksheets, glossaries, spreadsheets, resource databases, online chat with examiners and a series of Virtual Worlds to give a rich package of support for teachers, lecturers and students.
The site reflects the ever-changing business world with a high degree of topicality and currency. These include current affairs articles written to directly support the curriculum, weekly newsletters, case studies and features looking at the economics and business arguments behind various news stories. These materials underpin economic and business theory in ways that are practical, informative and iterative. The breadth of resources offers economics and business educators a wide range of options for the integration of Web-based materials into their learning and teaching programmes. The service also offers a range of workshops for FE and HE users.
Information is also provided on linking to Biz/ed.
Content Development
With over 30 years' direct teaching experience between them, Biz/ed's two Content Developers have deep knowledge of curricula in schools, colleges and higher education institutions. This, coupled with our expertise in examining, course design, programme leadership and student support, makes Biz/ed the number one choice for those seeking top quality teaching and learning resources across the business curriculum.
Biz/ed is also closely involved in the activities of the subject association for teachers of business and economics, the Economics and Business Education Association (EBEA). This includes regular presentations at conference and contributions to the Association's journal. Biz/ed has representatives at the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA) and has recently produced a report on controlled assessment in economics and business subjects for QCA. Biz/ed has also been a regular contributor to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) toolbox sessions for teachers. Biz/ed's content developers include a chief examiner for not just one examination but two!
Biz/ed truly has global reach: we receive feedback from across the world and have a very strong customer base at business schools, universities, colleges and schools. We have something to offer educators and learners at MBA, post-graduate, under-graduate, vocational studies, as well as at AS/A2 Level and GCSE, as our newsletter profile below demonstrates, showing a very strong profile at all academic levels. Our work is also highly regarded by professionals in language schools and across the social sciences. Go here to read what our customers tell us.
Newsletter profile for Biz/ed demonstrating popularity at all academic levels.
The hallmarks of Biz/ed's approach are:
- Deep appreciation of the learning process.
- Recognition of the different ways in which people learn.
- Creation of resources which appeal to a range of learning styles.
This translates into Biz/ed resources that are well-crafted, rich in visual stimuli, making extensive use of podcasting and activity-based learning. We aim to produce resources which engage learners and support educators in their work. Resources are deeply researched, often using hard-to-find contemporary reports, briefings and other valuable source material.
In short: we take time producing our work, so that you can save time doing yours!
Content Breakdown
For educators, lesson plans, presentations and activities are created and updated frequently over the academic year - we publish our schedule of these curriculum-mapped materials prior to the start of each term, so you'll know what's going to be produced, and when.
Our repository of resources is growing all the time, but you might find it helpful to know how many resources are available to you currently (July 2007). Please find details of the number of available resources below.
Covering Business at Level 2 (GCSE), BTEC National and AS/A2; Economics AS/A2; as well as Travel and Tourism Level 3 (National Diploma), we reach out across the broad business curriculum. Updated archives provide a valuable bank of resources, freely available to users regardless of their location. This is just one of the ways in which we have responded to what our customers have demanded. You said you wanted 'off the shelf' resources, directly usable with groups of learners - that's how we responded.
Lesson Plans & Activities - numbers
- 26 Level 2 resources
- 96 A2/AS Business Studies resources
- 61 A2/AS Economics resources
- 42 BTEC T&T resources
(total: 225)
We also have around 200 PowerPoint presentations across all subject areas.
Other resources produced on a frequent basis include:
Current Topics - numbers
- 69 Mind Your Business
- 28 Wanna Argument
- 36 At Your Leisure
- 6 Research Projects
- 15 Problem Based Learning
(total: 154)
Not only that, either!
Every weekday you can start the day with our In the News article, one of which is selected each week as a podcast with interactive questions. If you're looking for older news pieces, we have been running the ITNs since 2003. The archive currently (July 2007) stands at around 2,800 articles, so you should be able to find something relevant to your studies in there!
If you would like to keep up with what's new, upcoming and updated, sign up now for the Biz/ed Newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox. Keep up with the buzz on Biz/ed, joining the hundreds of thousands of teachers, learners and professionals making Biz/ed the premier digital learning partner in business subjects.
Other large-scale resources:
- Rip Curl boardmasters event
- Cash flow simulation
- Virtual Farm
- Virtual Bank of Biz/ed
- Virtual Developing Country
- Virtual Factory
- Virtual Economy
Our resources are updated frequently. The lesson plans and related activities and presentations outlined above are checked and, if needs be, updated on an annual basis. Additionally, we aim to update our large-scale data sets from the ONS, Penn World Data and Key Economic Data on a biannual basis. Company profiles are checked and updated at least once a year, and sometimes more frequently, depending on the situation of the company concerned.
We take your thoughts on what we do very seriously, acting upon your feedback as swiftly as possible. In response to what you had to say, we implemented more printer-friendly pages, made the site easier to navigate by adding new 'learning pathways', and also provided more guidance on the time required to complete resources. Furthermore, we will be investing heavily in redesigning the site fully to encompass brand new features and to enhance user-friendliness.
An Ethical Approach
As with our content development philosophy, we also believe in ethical business practices and in being honest with our customers. This means that when you sign up to a Biz/ed newsletter, what you will get is a Biz/ed newsletter and not unsolicited marketing materials. It also means that we do not trade off the name of other companies, as do competitor sites currently seeking to trade off the excellent name of Biz/ed.
As you see, we take our Content Development very earnestly, but also with a sense of fun - an essential part of creating resources that provide satisfaction for our appreciative users.
But you don't have to take our word for it: please follow this link for a sample of comments from Biz/ed users around the world, and at all levels.
The Biz/ed Team
John Yates Publishing Director
Andy Hargrave Content Developer
Andrew Ashwin Content Developer
Stewart Perrygrove Web Developer
Gaelle Beuzit Marketing Manager
A number of external authors also contribute materials to the Biz/ed site.
The Virtual Economy and the Virtual Learning Arcade were developed in association with the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Contacting Biz/ed
You can contact Biz/ed using our feedback form if you have any further queries and we always welcome feedback about the site. You can also keep up to date with developments on Biz/ed by subscribing to our newsletter.
If you wish to advertise with Biz/ed, please consult our media pack.
Please note that Biz/ed has a policy of reporting all offensive emails sent directly to any of our contact addresses or via our feedback forms.
Biz/ed contact details:
Biz/ed Team
Cengage Learning EMEA
High Holborn House
50-51 Bedford Row
London WC1R 4LR
Contact Biz/ed using our feedback form.
Cengage Learning (EMEA) Limited is a company incorporated under the laws of England and Wales (registered number: 903535, VAT number: 198923209).
Our registered office, main trading office and address for service is at Cheriton House, North Way, Andover SP10 5QS, UK.
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