Preparing for your course

Getting Started

Before your course begins you will be contacted with details on how to set up your university account to ensure a smooth start to your learning. This will include:

Your learning content consists of media-rich webpages, audiovisual content and files to download. The following are the minimum requirements.

  • Broadband Internet connection with speed of 5mbps or more
  • Chrome (recommended) or Edge, Firefox and Safari. Latest version of browser or two previous versions.
  • Java and Adobe Acrobat Reader enabled
  • Windows OS 10 or newer or Mac OS 10.14 Mojave or newer
  • Minimum screen size of 1024 x 768

View the full Technical Requirements Guide.

Your student email account is hosted by Microsoft Outlook, through the Office 365 platform.

The Library provides detailed guidance on your student email including how to access it on different devices.

Important University and Course communications will be sent to your student email so please get this set-up as soon as possible and ensure you check your student email regularly.

New Students: Make the most of your library

As a Leeds Beckett student you have access to a great deal of resources and support. Our Library provides full guidance on what is available to you, how to access resources and software, and online help to get yourself set up ready to begin your studies. This guide is a good place to start with the most helpful links as you being your student journey.

Office 365 provides access anytime, anywhere, and on any device for the duration of your studies at Leeds Beckett to a wide range of Office apps including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams. It includes five free licences to install Microsoft Office on your personal computer and devices (phones, tablets, Netbooks, laptops) and a generous 1TB of cloud storage for your university files.

Your Office 365 package includes a full range of inclusive and accessible tools which help to make your study-life easier and are developing all the time.

Digital Hub

As a distance learner, you can use the Library’s Offsite service. This service offers help with accessing electronic resources, access to other libraries, postal book loans and journal article supply.

You can find out more and view the full range of services provided at Information for offsite students. You’ll also find details of how to sign up for postal loans if you want to request books by mail.

Student looking at book in library

Useful tools

There are many useful tools and apps that can be used to support your learning. We recommend you use the full Office 365 suite and the apps that work well with it, particularly because of the excellent built-in inclusivity across the suite. These are just a few other examples you might like to try:

Microsoft Teams is a collaborative working and digital community platform and provides a space for discussion and debate, the sharing of ideas and resources and place for online group seminars and meetings. It is easy to use and has an intuitive and accessible interface similar in many ways to commonly used social media platforms, but unlike these platforms, Teams provides a secure, professional network for you to communicate with your classmates and lecturer.

Teams is part of the Office 365 suite of apps and further information is available from the Library.

There is a mobile app for Blackboard (MyBeckett), available across the three main mobile platforms, that will be useful in supporting your learning.

While we expect you to access the majority of our content via a browser, you may find the app helpful to get notifications and keep up with discussions that are going on during your module.

You can find links to the app and Help videos in the online Library help topics.

As a student at Leeds Beckett you have free access to Office 365, including Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and 1TB of cloud storage.

It also has excellent compatibility across your devices, as well as a full range of inclusive and accessible tools.