ERIC Update
In January 2004, the U.S. Department of Education began to implement a reengineering plan for the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC). SLA has created a summary of the proposed reengineering of ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center), including informative articles and useful sites. If you have any comments or additional recommendations for this page, please contact Doug Newcomb at Dnewcomb@sla.org.
ERIC Background
ERIC was founded in 1966 and funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, and the National Library of Education. ERIC is the world's largest source of education information, and has been a database compiled by 16 subject-specific clearinghouses containing more than one million abstracts of documents and journal articles that can be accessed via the Internet or through commercial vendors and public networks. These clearinghouse contracts expired in December 2003, and a complete reengineering of ERIC took place during 2004.
Contributed by Kate Corby
It's been a long time since I've written about ERIC, but something has come up. The new contractor has secured additional funding and is digitizing all the old (1966-1992) microfiche. Read more.
This is great news for all who had worried about declining accessibility of these items. The catch to the good news is that the reproduction releases signed by authors/copyright holders during this period did not include electronic format. So the ERIC contractor is attempting to contact all these authors to get a release for this additional format. This is being done by a subcontractor, but there have been some bumps on the road.
Some contributors to ERIC were education related associations/organizations whose publications were copyrighted by the organization itself. Those permissions should be comparatively easy, if the organization still exists.
Many of the ERIC documents are authored by individuals as research reports or conference papers. These items will require locating each author individually. Most were affiliated with a college/university, either as faculty or as students. The requests are going to academic institutions because that is often the only contact information available. Which office within an institution receives the contact seems to vary widely. I've heard from several librarians who are fielding puzzled calls from their education departments, technology staff, central administration, etc.
I know not everyone is a reference librarian, but to the extent possible I urge you to try to help these inquiries find their way to the correct recipient. I have one that came to our library outreach service for someone who seems never to have published much of anything else. With a little digging I found the person's dissertation in our catalog, and his name and address in our alumni directory.
Many of the requests come in as rather cryptic emails from "ERIC Permissions." Others are phone call contacts. I've heard rumblings that not all the people who are making the calls to try to find ERIC authors are knowledgeable, understandable (some English as a second language I guess), or enthused about their work. Please don't let the messenger obscure the importance of the message.
I understand that assisting in this effort is above and beyond the call, especially if you are not an education librarian. I simply urge you to please do it anyway. Every permission granted is at least one more item added to the common pool of widely available knowledge. It's a great way to have a small but lasting impact.
21 July 2005
The ongoing restructuring of ERIC has been a concern to many who rely on the system for useful and timely information. Kate Corby, Education and Psychology Reference Librarian Michigan State University Libraries, has done and admirable job in reporting out on the ERIC User Group committees.
The following is reprinted with the permission of Kate Corby, who also gives credit to Suzanne Brown of University of Florida, who is on the ERIC User Committee, and to SLA member Patricia Libutti, PhD, at Rutgers University, who has provided leadership and input as well. Kate Corby is archiving the information about the recent changes in the contract for ERIC and changes in the ERIC News site, and highlights more recent information at http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/doe.htm She intends to work with the formal ERIC User Group, and hopes to also maintain the quick response time. Some of the changes to this new web site are still in development -- like a blog for ERIC User interaction -- but she is putting up a core of information and encourages everyone to forward their questions and insights about the ERIC product to her so that so that the information may be posted for everyone. Kate Corby's contact information is: corby@mail.lib.mus.edu
ERIC News on the Web--New Content
Contributed by Kate Corby (corby@mail.lib.mus.edu)
There is now some new content in ERIC, posted June 26, 2005 and presumably more coming in weekly. Right now the new content is only available on the ERIC.Gov site but that should change in early August. Vendors (Ebsco, FirstSearch, Ovid, etc.) are being asked to sign a new contract before new content can flow to them. The contract is concerned with ERIC's need for comprehensive use statistics and also discusses the copyright restrictions that stem from the fact that the database is now reproducing journal abstracts rather than doing original abstracting. Everything I've heard from the contractor so far leads me to believe that ERIC will eventually index a large proportion of the education literature. It may use labels to identify different "quality" characteristics, but will not attempt to limit listings to approved or "scientifically based" research.
List of Journals Indexed
There is also now a list of journals available from the ERIC site. It seems to be the list that accompanied the old version of ERIC, with a special icon for those journals currently onboard for indexing. A current listing of journals indexed.
On the ERIC web site, the information about each title includes ISSN, publisher, coverage level, peer review status, frequency, and a brief description. I have had some reports that the information about journal titles in incomplete. While I haven't checked them all, the lapses seem to be in titles not currently being indexed. For the ones on the current list I did not find incomplete information.
Linking - This is a weak link (bad pun) of the new product.
Some of the linking conventions in the new ERIC interface remain problematic. The full text ERIC document files are a great improvement over the previous files, much quicker to load and more reliable to access. But the links call a java servlet and require cut and paste action by users to construct a useable link (detailed instructions at http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/eric/neweric/fulltext.htm). Since it is also not possible to email a link/document, this is a serious drawback.
Links to other types of material are also still not fully developed.
Library holding linking is still in development. Currently journal articles link to the journal publisher home page (that's right, not even the journal home page) with no mention of other providers (including not linking to services like Ingenta which are often the sole source for electronic versions of a journal). I found some document items full text on their sponsor's web pages, but no link in ERIC to the text. Presumably the contractor's employees are aware of these problems -- some of them admittedly quite thorny -- and are moving as quickly as possible toward a resolution. Users need to be cognizant of the issues so that we can provide appropriate guidance as the inevitable development issues come up.
ERIC Users have asked about APA reference formats for ERIC documents, since EDRS no longer exists, but the 5th edition of the APA manual includes it in the format recommendation. I am working on getting a reply to that question from the APA. That information and other "picky details" that librarians need to know, will be on the new web pages, so bookmark for future reference.
Journals currently (2004-2005) (as of July 21, 2005) indexed in ERIC
American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research The Journal of the National Center
American Journal of Distance Education
American Psychologist
Annals of Dyslexia
Anthropology & Education Quarterly
Applied Measurement in Education
Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association
Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education
Assessment in Education Principles Policy and Practice
British Educational Research Journal
British Journal of Educational Studies
British Journal of Educational Technology
British Journal of Guidance & Counselling
British Journal of Sociology of Education
British Journal of Special Education
Cambridge Journal of Education
Child Development
Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics
Cognition and Instruction
Communication Education
Community College Journal of Research and Practice
Compare
Computers in Libraries
Developmental Psychology
Discourse Processes A Multidisciplinary Journal
Distance Education
Early Child Development and Care
Education Economics
Educational Assessment
Educational Forum
Educational Gerontology
Educational Horizons
Educational Media International
Educational Psychologist
Educational Psychology in Practice
Educational Research
Educational Research and Evaluation: An International Journal on Theory and Practice
Educational Review
Educational Studies Journal of the American Educational Studies Assoc
Environmental Education Research
Equity & Excellence in Education
European Journal of Teacher Education
Exceptionality
Foreign Language Annals
Gifted Child Today
High Ability Studies
Higher Education Research & Development
History of Education
Industry & Higher Education
Innovations in Education and Teaching International
Interactive Learning Environments
International Journal of Aging and Human Development
International Journal of Early Years Education
International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders
International Journal of Lifelong Education
International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
International Journal of Science Education
International Journal of Testing
Journal for the Education of the Gifted
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Journal of Basic Writing
Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
Journal of Counseling Psychology
Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk
Journal of Education for Teaching
Journal of Education Policy
Journal of Educational Computing Research
Journal of Educational Psychology
Journal of Educational Technology Systems
Journal of Further and Higher Education
Journal of Geography in Higher Education
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management
Journal of Intellectual Disability Research
Journal of Language, Identity, and Education
Journal of Latinos and Education
Journal of Moral Education
Journal of Secondary Gifted Education
Journal of the Learning Sciences
Journal of Visual Literacy
Language Acquisition
Liberal Education
Mathematical Thinking and Learning
Merrill-Palmer Quarterly
Multicultural Education
Multivariate Behavioral Research
Music Education Research
Oxford Review of Education
Peabody Journal of Education
Psychological Assessment
Psychological Methods
Quarterly Journal of Speech
Race Ethnicity and Education
Reading and Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties
Reading Psychology
Reading Research Quarterly
Reading Teacher
Research in Drama Education
Research in Science and Technological Education
Russian Education and Society
School Effectiveness and School Improvement
School Leadership & Management
Scientific Studies of Reading
Structural Equation Modeling
Studies in Higher Education
Teachers College Record
Teaching in Higher Education
Teaching of Psychology
Teaching Statistics
TechTrends
Theory into Practice
Letters to the Honorable Rod Paige, U.S Secretary of Education
- Draft Statement of Work for ERIC. SLA, ARL, and AALL submitted comments to The Honorable Rod Paige, the Secretary of Education, regarding the Draft Statement of Work for ERIC. http://www.sla.org/PDFs/ERICComments.pdf
- Draft Statement of Work for ERIC. SLA's Education Division submitted comments to The Honorable Rod Paige, the Secretary of Education, regarding the Draft Statement of Work for ERIC. http://www.sla.org/content/SLA/advocacy/ERICUpdate/EduDivDraftStatement.cfm
Useful Links
Click here to find websites that are constantly updating material and informational articles about ERIC.
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