Career Information -Online Career Resources

Introduction

As the world and technology continue to evolve, CDPs must evolve with them. The internet era has moved a huge amount of information online, including career and labour market information, giving CDPs a wide variety of resources to serve students and clients better.

Advantages of e-resources

E-resources offer usability, readability, affordability, accessibility, reduced cost, unlimited capabilities, international reach, convenience, searchability and linking. Compared with print media, they offer several advantages. Multi-access means a networked product can be used at multiple points in time (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) by multiple simultaneous users. Speed means an electronic resource is quicker to browse, search, quote from, and cross-reference between publications. Functionality allows the user to work with publications in new ways and analyse content more easily. Content means e-resources can hold a huge amount of mixed media, including images, video, audio and animation, which cannot be replicated in print.

The different types of e-resources

There are many types of e-resources, most available online. Many are free while others carry a fee, but the sheer volume available makes them easy to access.

E-books. An e-book is the electronic version of a traditional book, read on a personal computer, an e-book reader, or a reader app on a phone or tablet. The most functional way to obtain one is to download the file from a website. Users can bookmark pages, make notes, highlight passages and save chosen text. Sources include:

- Khetha Career Publications - https://www.careerhelp.org.za/publications

- GoStudy - https://www.gostudy.net/

E-journals. An e-journal is the electronic version of an academic article or thesis, usually found online, published and distributed worldwide by electronic networks. Users can search full text or contents pages to find articles on a subject and read them online or download them to read or print later. E-journals are accessible any time from anywhere, and are available in text as well as audio-visual formats. Sources include:

- Sabinet African Journals - https://journals.co.za/

E-zines. An e-zine (short for electronic magazine, also called a web-zine) is an online magazine circulated through the internet, usually published via bulletin board systems or other public networks. E-zines can cover product advertising and educational, cultural, political and social issues. They can be accessed anytime and downloaded, offer higher-quality photos and graphics than many other resources, and allow users to comment to the authors on an article. Sources include:

- Career Guidance Project - https://www.careerguidanceproject.co.za/resources/career-info/

E-newspapers. An electronic newspaper is an independent, reusable and up-to-date edition of a traditional newspaper that holds information electronically. E-newspapers are updated daily by editorial boards and may carry video, audio and text news. Whereas a print newspaper carries today's news only tomorrow, an e-newspaper makes current news immediately available, and users can easily access previous editions online. As dedicated career-information e-newspapers are not common in South Africa, CDPs are better served relying on the career-specific webpages listed below for this type of update.

Webpages and websites. A webpage is a page or set of pages containing information about a subject, published by a person or organisation, while a website is a collection of connected web pages. Both can be found through search engines such as Google. A practitioner looking for career guidance information could direct clients to dedicated South African platforms such as:

- Khetha (National Career Advice Portal) - https://www.careerhelp.org.za/

- GoStudy - https://www.gostudy.net/

- Career Guidance Project - https://www.careerguidanceproject.co.za/

Conclusion

As technology evolves and the world migrates online, career practitioners must move with the times and make full use of available e-resources. These resources can help the CDP further their own education and abilities and increase the quality of service they provide, and because they are widely available and easily shareable, they make things easier for both the CDP and the client.