Get started with Load2Learn

About Load2Learn

Downloading (Membership)

Uploading (share your resources)

Searching for books

Requesting books

Training and guidance

Load2Learn website overview video

About Load2Learn

Load2Learn provides accessible textbooks and images to support dyslexic, partially sighted or blind learners who have difficulty reading standard print. Our service is free to educators in the UK, with a charge for overseas members.

Load2Learn will significantly improve the school experience for these learners and save time for your teaching staff who support them.

Find out more about us.

Downloading (Membership)

You will not be able to download resources (with the exception of Nelson Thornes* publisher PDFs) from Load2Learn, until you have either:

• joined your organisation's existing membership group, or
• had your membership application approved.

Remember, you must own a copy of the original published book that you are downloading the accessible edition of. Read our Copyright guidance to learn what you must do and may not do with the resources you download.

Membership is not directly provided to individuals such as parents and students. However, they can be invited to join the organisation's membership group, see Step 5.

* Nelson Thornes are now part of Oxford University Press.

Does your organisation already have a membership?

• No: sign up for an account - you must set this up using a recognised work email address. Create your group and apply for membership - you will then be the Lead Member for your organisation's membership group. Follow Steps 1 to 5.

• Yes: sign up for an account and ask your organisation's Lead Member to invite you to the membership group. Accept the invitation. Follow Steps 1 and 6.

• Step 1: Create your account
• Step 2: Set up your organisation's group
• Step 3: Apply for membership
• Step 4: Membership approved - you can now download!
• Step 5: Invite others to join your membership group
• Step 6: Accept the invitation

Step 1: Create your account

- you must set up your account using a school or organisation email address.

At this stage you will be able to:

• join your organisation's membership group
• search and browse for resources
• request books and images not yet on the site
• contribute your own accessible materials
• view our training and guidance pages
• download Nelson Thornes publisher PDFs.

Step 2: Set up your organisation's group

You do not need to set up a group if you have been invited to join your organisation's existing membership group.

You only need to create a group if you are applying for membership and will be the key contact (Lead Member) for your organisation. Only one membership group per school or organisation should be created.

As the Lead Member you are responsible for managing the group and inviting others to join the group in order to give them download rights, and removing them when they no longer require access or are no longer eligible.

• Log in to your Load2Learn account and select 'My account' in the right hand menu, below the 'log out' button
• This brings you to the 'My account details' page.
• Under the 'Membership and groups' section, select the 'create a group' link and enter your group name (school/organisation). If you have alread created a group the link will say 'manage my group'.

Step 3: Applying for membership

It may take up to 72 hours for your membership application to be approved.

• UK Members: membership is free for educators in the UK.
• Overseas Members (not yet available): there will be a membership fee for educators overseas.

• Log in to your Load2Learn account and select 'My account' in the right hand menu, below the Log out button.
• This brings you to the 'My account details' page.
• Under the 'Memberships and Groups' section, select the 'create a group' link and enter your group name. If you have already created a group the link will say "manage my group".
• Select the 'apply for free membership' link.
• This brings you to the 'Free membership application' page, where you apply for membership.
• Select the 'Apply for your free Load2Learn membership' button.
• Next, you will be taken to a 'Confirm membership application' page.
• You will be returned to the 'Manage group' page and given confirmation that your membership application has been sent for processing.

Step 4: Membership approved - you can now download!

You will now be able to:

• download resources
• invite others to join your membership group
• receive member benefits.

Step 5: Invite others to join your membership group

Learn more about managing your group. You can invite others to join your group, this could be:

• colleagues
• parents
• students
• private tutors working with your students.

How to invite others to join your group:

• Click the 'My account' link in the right hand menu below the login button.
• Click the 'manage my group' link in the 'Memberships and Groups' section.
• You can invite others to become part of your membership by clicking on the 'invite users' link in the 'Invitations to join this group' section.
• List the email addresses of the people you wish to invite in the 'Invite users to join group' section, one email address per line.
• Click the 'Send invitations' button to confirm your invitations, or 'cancel' to not send invitations and escape from the page.
• The listed users will be emailed an invitation and can accept it by following the link in the email.
• A confirmation email will be sent to you, the group owner, listing user(s) you have invited to join your group.
• By returning to the 'Manage group' page, you will see who the current members of your group are.

Step 6: Accept the invitation

If your school or organisation already has Load2Learn membership set up, the key contact (Lead Member) for the group may send you an invitation to join the group, so you can also download resources.

You must be logged into your own Load2Learn account before you click on the link within the invitation email. By accepting an invitation to join a membership group you will be able to download resources.

Uploading (share your resources)

A fantastic thing about Load2Learn is that you can easily share the resources you have created and have stored on your systems, with other people supporting print-disabled learners. Helping to build a greated central pool of resources and reducing duplication of effort, while getting faster access to the resources your learners' need.

Load2Learn has been built for you - it is what you can help make it!

Upload proccess

Uploading a book should take now more than five minutes. Uploading an image should take 10 minutes tops - your little bit of effort helps others find what they are looking for more quickly.

For books, simply enter the ISBN and the majority of information about the book is automatically pulled through from the Bibliographic Database Service (BDS). Give it a check through and add the little additional information required and submit your upload. We then validate the record to ensure all the information has been completed fully before making it live on the site.

• Select "contribute" in the left-hand menu
• "Contribute your resources here"
• "Create a new resource
• "Book" then enter the ISBN, or
• "Image". 

Guidance on contributing your resources is available.

Lots to upload?

If you have a large number of resources we can send you out a hard drive to put them onto and we will do the uploading on your behalf.

However, in doing it this way it will take a lot longer for the resources to appear on the site and titles will be uploading as and when they are requested by members.

Upload a new version

You may download a book from Load2Learn that has been contributed by a third party which is not formatted or that contains errors (we do not have the original print copy to check them against).

If you spend time formatting or correcting the book, you can use the "upload new version" link to provide the updated file.

We will then validate and replace the file on the site. Meaning the next member who needs it has time saved and you are helping each other to build a better quality resources.

Searching for books

Search records by ISBN

The quickest way to find out if we have a book on the site is to type the ISBN into the "search records" field  in the top right of the site. You must enter the ISBN without any spaces or hypens - just a string of 10 or 13 digits.

• If the book is available it will appear in search results.
• If the book is not available you can request it and we will do our best to source an electronic file - this may be a publisher file, or one from another Load2Learn member.

Browse

You can also use the "browse" categories, particularly useful for finding reading scheme titles available for a particular level.

• Select "browse" fron the left-hand menu and then "books".
• "Reading schemes" - over 45 schemes listed.
• "Basic skills" - books for reluctant readers, 12 schemes listed.

Advanced search

If you want to know which books we have available for a particular Key Stage, you can do an "advanced search".

• Select "Advanced search" from the left-hand menu (under "Search").
• Then set your "filters".
• Format type: books/images/exam papers
• Educational level: select the Key Stage.

If you wish to search for a particular subject, type the subject (Science, Maths, Geography, etc) into the "Search for" field.

Requesting books

We have thousands of titles on Load2Learn and receive around 200 book requests a month for titles not yet on the site.

Turn-around times range from two days to three months, so please request your titles as early as possible.

Over 30 publishers (and their imprints) are adding their electronic files to Load2Learn and discussions are taking place with other publishers to bring them on board.

• Select "Request" from the left-hand menu.
• "Request books".

Please read the information on the book request page carefully - it is subject to change - and some publishers require additional information before they will release their files to us. To ensure a smooth process it is important that you complete the correct request form.

Training and guidance

Our Training and guidance section will support you to get the most out of the resources you download from Load2Learn.

• We have videos on how to use the site and the materials.
• Guidance on how to create structured Word documents, including our Load2Learn specification templates; Word 2007/2010 docx template and Word 2003 doc template
• Computer hints and tips cards, with handy keyboard short cuts and quick guides to different access technologies.

Load2Learn website overview video

Watch this short video to learn more about the features on Load2Learn.

 

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