Staff FAQs

Q1 What will FurtherPages.co.uk provide for me?

This new supplier directory website will help make your job easier if you need to find suppliers for products or services and contact them, for example to get competitive quotes. And because we know how frustrating it can be if you are looking for last year’s information for a similar project, we have included a useful project management tool that will allow you to keep a record on the site of the suppliers you talk to for different projects, so you can refer back to it in future. The site will be an excellent tool for giving you easy access to potential new suppliers that are specifically relevant to your job, and that you know have worked with other institutions and organisations within Further (or Higher) Education previously – or if they haven’t, that they have relevant services. It will include entries from all sorts of companies and organisations, from local taxi firms and hotels to specialist equipment suppliers and advertising agencies.

Q2 How will I use the site?

You can register on FurtherPages.co.uk and start searching or browsing the database for suppliers immediately. You will be able to select suppliers you want to keep information on and save those records into special Project files, where you will then be able to record your contact with them: when you start the next similar project you will have an easily accessible record of the suppliers you used, (and those you didn’t) and what you thought of them. You do not have to register to use the site, but if you would like to save searches you need to register to do so.

Q3 Is it free for me to use?

Yes – both FurtherPages.co.uk (and HigherPages.co.uk) are free for you to use.

Q4 How will I find suppliers using the sites?

You will be able to search either nationally or locally, or you can browse our supplier categories, which have been chosen to reflect areas likely to be important to you if you work in Further or Higher Education. If we have missed a key area, we hope you will let us know!

Q5 Can I make purchases directly from the site?

No. FurtherPages.co.uk and HigherPages.co.uk are provided for reference only. Online Resource Pages Ltd (the company which publishes FurtherPages.co.uk and HigherPages.co.uk) has no purchasing agreements of any sort with the companies and organisations that list on the site, other than for the advertisements and listings they place on the website(s). We would recommend that you should always make purchases in accordance with the processes, policies and agreements in place within your own institution or organisation.

Q6 I am running a big conference, can the sites help me?

The sites will be an invaluable tool for a project that has many different elements to it, such as a conference. You will be able to select suppliers and save them to different areas that you set up within the same Project – for example, catering, or marketing, or hire of poster boards - very like saving a Word document to a new folder. Once you have saved them you will be able to add your own comments to your project record so when the next similar project comes round, you will have the record already there.

Q7 I need to get several quotes for a new project I’m working on – can I do that?

Yes, you can contact suppliers directly from the site if they have provided their contact details, to ask for quotes, and record notes within your individual Saved Projects.

Q8 Can I keep a record of the searches I make?

Yes, you can make as many searches as you like, and save each one to a Project – you can save several searches within a single Project, as we recognise that many Projects are multi-faceted and involve several different areas.

Q9 I work in Central Purchasing and we have guidelines about purchases – how will it help us?

Staff are asked to register using their work email, so we know which institution they belong to: their account page will include a special page giving them information about their own organisation and any purchasing rules it may have, if the organisation supplies us with that information. You can send us this information in advance for your own organisation, or you can provide it when you register – only one person per purchasing office will be able to provide this information for your institution, to avoid duplication of information. If you want to send us your list of suppliers, flagging those that are mandatory or preferred suppliers for your organisation, we will also show this information on the organisation page of all registered users for your organisation. We hope that this will help you spread the word about purchasing rules within your organisation. If you have any queries about this, please do contact us using our enquiry form.

Q10 Do you recommend certain suppliers?

We do not recommend individual suppliers ourselves. We will provide users with the opportunity to recommend suppliers and in future that information may be published on the site from time to time, for example in the form of reports summarising user recommendations. Online Resource Pages Ltd does not make any recommendations or endorse any individual companies or organisations, and we cannot undertake specific research on behalf of enquirers. If you work in an institution, we would always advise you to check with your own Purchasing or Procurement office whether there are any purchasing agreements in place within your organisation which might require or recommend you to use certain suppliers, or which may set out criteria by which suppliers should be chosen.

Q11 I have used suppliers that I cannot find on the website, can I add them?

If you would like to recommend suppliers or if there are any that should be on the site that are missing, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please send us the information via our contact form. Assuming that supplier meets our criteria of having relevant services, and preferably having worked with Further or Higher education organisations already, we will then add a basic listing to the site so you can include them in your projects. We will also get back to you to let you know what we have done.

Q12 When was Online Resource Pages set up?

PostgraduateStudentships.co.uk, one of the divisions of Online Resource Pages Ltd, was established in November 2006, as a Partnership. Online Resource Pages Ltd was incorporated in June 2008 by the owner of PostgraduateStudentships.co.uk, Jane Penrose, and on 1 November 2008 PostgraduateStudentships.co.uk became a trading division of Online Resource Pages Ltd. FurtherPages.co.uk and HigherPages.co.uk were launched in December 2008.