ERIC Users Information Exchange

ERIC Users Information Exchange tips, techniques and current information about the ERIC index This site presents the contents of a blog that was little used and has been eliminated.

	ACRL EBSS ERIC Users Forum June 2007 Notes of the ACRL EBSS ERIC Users Forum Date: Sunday, 6/24/2007 Time: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM Location: Capital Hilton, Senate Room, Washington, DC Wil Frost presided and welcomed the audience and the panel, members of the ERIC Project Team: Judy Beck, Acquisitions and Processing Lead; Nancy Cawley, Communications Lead; Pete Dagutis, Associate Project Director; Larry Henry, Project Director; and Sue Weiss, Lexicography Team Lead. The ERIC update presented by the panel included the following topics: (1) Content Update (2) Project to Digitize Microfiche Documents (3) New and Enhanced Web Site Features (4) ERIC Thesaurus (1) Content Update (Judy Beck) 65,400 records added since 2004 17,400 of the records were accessioned from January-May 2007 Content providers now include: 200+ journal providers 480+ Non-journal provider agreements signed 80+ federal entities 52+ book publishers Looking to close the 2002-2003 gap Full text display options Monitoring title and publisher changes Identifying and researching new sources, including journals and grey literature Concise, accurate, and timely representation of every document is a goal Objective of less than 30-day processing time for incoming items Objective of at least 1,000 records published online each week Responding to a question from the audience, the panelists emphasized that ERIC is an English language database; some international materials from English-speaking countries (Great Britain and Australia in particular) are included, but other international material is considered only when available with an English translation. (2) Project to Digitize Microfiche Documents (Pete Dagutis) 340,000 ERIC documents were accessioned from 1966 to 1992 (40+ million images) 250,000 unique authors Goal is to have these items converted to electronic format by March 2009 when the CSC ERIC contract with the US Department of Education is scheduled to end Vendors will receive added full-text content in July 2007 and monthly thereafter Documents will be scanned in reverse chronological order from 1992 to 1966 Explicit permission will be required to release items in electronic full-text form, either from the copyright holder or from the estate if the owner is deceased Phase 1 (completed) 62,000+ documents from the period 1992-1988 have been scanned Permissions for 20,000 of the 62,000 documents were received as of May 29, 2007 Documents will be loaded and attached to ERIC records only after permission is received 20,000 documents were released in electronic format on the government ERIC site on June 24, 2007 Phase 2 (in progress) Convert the 275,000 remaining documents from 1987 and earlier Permission has been received for 29,000 of those documents Release documents accessioned during the years 1988-1992 on a monthly basis as permissions received New content and changes to existing records to be released monthly (3) New and Enhanced Web Site Features (Larry Henry) Redesigned ERIC web site was released in the fall of 2006 Home page was restructured and streamlined for faster loading “Contribute to the ERIC Collection” section was added with access to an online submission form and a new page for publishers “In the Spotlight” section of news, facts, and features with count of records added in the last month was also added Enhanced search engine: faster, allows exact word searching, new sorting option with relevance ranking as the default Improved journal list – years of coverage and number of articles indexed New journal agreements added to list of journals indexed about quarterly (most recent update done in February 2007) Recent changes ERIC Digitization Project Section on the web site “Find in a Library” OpenURL feature via OCLC WorldCat Local helps searchers identify where materials might be found New “Related Items” feature on the Record Details page provides links to related records New training materials are being developed In response to a question about books indexed in ERIC, the ERIC team indicated that the aim is to provide a selective list of the best book titles in education, not a complete list of all books. (4) ERIC Thesaurus Update (Sue Weiss) Purpose of Thesaurus is to allow standardized indexing that facilitates search and retrieval Reasons for updating: improve indexing, improve retrieval Distinction between major and minor descriptors no longer supported Dates of usage being removed from descriptors where they occur Category of changes Reinstated terms Added scope notes Edited scope notes Added cross references New descriptors Accommodations for terms with multiple meanings (new descriptors) Various examples of descriptor changes were shown Questions from the Audience Q: Please expand on areas of grey literature under consideration for inclusion. A: ERIC has almost 500 sources for gray literature under agreement and acquires the materials from over 80 federal agencies. As these sources are culled, additional sources are identified. The staff works with known experts in the fields to identify gray resources. Gray literature is also submitted by individuals through the ERIC Online Submission system and can include conference papers, individual research projects and papers, commission reports, agency reports, and papers from other organizations, among other types of materials. Gray materials are from non-journal and non-commercial sources. Q: Gray literature? Does the source come to ERIC or does ERIC pursue the source? A: It works both ways. ERIC personnel identify sources on an on-going basis and seek agreements with appropriate organizations, agencies, or other entities. It is not a simple process to “know” the universe of available gray literature, but this is an ongoing priority for ERIC. Q: What about Open Access journals (which some members of the audience felt should be included)? A: Open Access journals are a new source for ERIC gray literature; however, if the journal is of a temporary nature it cannot be included. One issue with Open Access journals is that ERIC encourages publishers to provide a link in ERIC to the full text. This can be problematic for Open Access journals because often the publishers want to attract searchers to the native interface for tracking purposes. Q: Are association materials being included? Are they able to submit online? Are we losing association resources? A: ERIC pursues association publications but some associations worry about economic issues and do not want to give up control of their full-text content. Small association staffs are another issue in terms of staff time available. ERIC offers to serve as an archive for association publications. Association materials are not typically submitted through the Online Submission System. ERIC is constantly working with education-related associations to acquire gray literature for inclusion in ERIC. Q: Are you watching the growth of institutional repositories? A: Yes, on radar screen. Q: When we consider the level 1 & 2 retrospective coverage when can librarians throw away microfiche? Level 3 never any content? Lists of released documents available? [combined questions] A: For Level 3 documents there was never any full-text content available on microfiche. There was only the citation and abstract. These fiche could be discarded at any time. Level 1 and 2 document fiche could be discarded as full-text is released in digital format. This will be a policy discussion for each institution. ERIC intends to scan all documents but can only release them in digital format after permission is received. National Library of Education has committed to be make any ERIC document with full-text available via Interlibrary Loan either directly or via the OCLC interlibrary loan process. ERIC will investigate ways to compile lists of documents that local institutions might use to identify fiche to discard. Q: Will ERIC reconsider its decision to not include lesson plans? A. Probably not. Q: What is happening with Identifiers? Used to be considered descriptors in waiting? A: In Identifier Field you find terms related to proper names, geographic areas, laws and legislation, tests and testing. Legacy file will still have Identifiers. Identifiers are no longer considered descriptors in waiting. ERIC is evaluating existing identifiers now for inclusion in the thesaurus. Q: How do you obtain permission to release materials in digital format from a person who is deceased? A: Communication goes to the estate of the deceased person. Q: How can microfiche be recycled? A: Pete Dagutis will investigate. Q: What happened to Thesaurus in the last major revision? A: In 2004 there was a large revision and deletion of rarely used terms. Dates indicating the history of the use of a term will be taken out of the descriptor itself and instead embedded within the thesaurus record. Q: In the past there was the very useful distinction noted by Major and Minor descriptors. This was useful to researchers who were doing an overview and only consulted Major descriptors, versus the researcher who was doing comprehensive research and therefore consulted both Major and Minor descriptors. Could we return this option? A: The decision to eliminate this distinction in 2004 will not be changed. While ERIC requests the full text of journal articles for indexing purposes not all publishers are able or willing to provide it. It is not possible to make major/minor distinctions without the full text. Q: Grade level still to be included? A: Yes, educational level is in a separate field now. Q: Is there a list of educational levels available? A: Yes, in the Help file. Discussion suggested that different vendors offer different ways to search for educational levels. Q: What is the status of the Department of Education’s project to identify the peer review status of journals indexed in ERIC? (several questions combined) A: Chris Dunn, from the National Library of Education, took the platform and explained that each title will be researched, including legacy titles. Chris asked what kind of input the education library community would like to have. Is there other information about journals that should be collected as each title is checked? For example, does the community want name changes noted in journal records? ISSN numbers? Date when a journal became peer reviewed? Indication of partial peer review? Identification of professional or trade journals? Blind review versus other methods of review? Extended discussion ensued. It was generally agreed that further discussion could occur online via the EBSS discussion list. This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007
	ERIC Users Group Meeting — ALA Midwinter 2007 ERIC Users Forum/ALA Midwinter – Seattle Sunday, January 21, 2007 – 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM Approximately 50 people attended the open ERIC Forum at Midwinter in Seattle. Five members of the ERIC/CSC Project team (Nancy Cawley, Communications Lead; Larry Henry, Project Director; Pete Dagutis, Deputy Project Director/Business Manager; Judy Beck, Acquisitions and Processing Team Lead and Sue Weiss, Lexicography Team Lead) and representatives from EBSCO (Bethany Wright), CSA (Jill Blaemers) and APA (Carl Cabading) were present to provide an update on ERIC initiatives (old and new) and discuss issues of concern raised by the audience. Larry Henry began the session with a technical update on ERIC’s new interface that was launched in the Fall of 2006. Enhancements include: Restructured home page streamlining the design for faster loading Spotlight gallery for news, facts, & features Counter indicating number of new materials added More information about the collections and information about how publishers can get involved Eliminated stemming, searches now matches actual word but you can still use * for truncation Sorting is by relevance with the newest materials first Journal list now includes years of coverage and number of records in the collection ERIC’s goal is to provide as much full text access as possible. They are working with publishers/vendors to implement more open URLS & IP addresses. The My Library is still in beta testing. They are also working with WorldCat enhance locating journals. Another project they are still working on is structured abstracting. Authors who submit their materials online are being asked to create structured abstracts. This is more difficult to apply to journals since they are receiving feeds from the publishers. Pete Dagutis then presented information about the new digitizing project. They are in the process of digitizing all Level 1 & Level 2 microfiche (90% of the collection, 400,000 items). ERIC is working on obtaining copyright permissions, contracting with the National Archive Publishing Company to make the contacts and request permissions. About 250,000 copyrights are involved (permission is not necessary for government documents). Content will be released monthly as copyright permissions are secured They started with 1992 materials and are working backwards. Materials from 1992-88 should be done by March 2007. The entire collection should be done by March 2009. The NLE will receive a backup copy of the materials. Some concerns were expressed about the survivability of the files. According to ERIC, they are using rigorous standards established by the National Archives for long-term storage of digital material (using .TIF files). Questions discussed related to this topic included: What happens to those you can’t find the copyright holder? – The materials won’t be released. What about government materials? Those materials should be release as soon as they are scanned and ready for the database. What % yield copyright do they think they will get? – They really didn’t know. How will librarians know what is available online so they can withdraw the fiche? - Not sure yet how they will communicate that information. What will be the quality of these materials? - Documents will be scanned from the microfiche; if the fiche copy is poor quality the digitization will be poor. There are no plans to try to obtain better copies. How will this impact the vendors? – There should be no problem since they will receive the links with the monthly updates. How will materials from school districts be handled since they are considered government agencies? - Not sure but if FDLP, yes the will be released. Otherwise they will need copyright permission. The same will be true for federal research reports). Nancy Cawley discussed some of the outreach activities for this project. The web site has page for folks to give permission. They are planning to use newsletters, web sites, listservs, personal representatives, and links from databases to spread the word. Vendors are also going to help publicize as well. DOE will be sending out information to schools of educations and will do the same with State Boards of Education. It was suggested they contact organizations who have contributed gray literature to the database. And of course librarians can also spread the word. We will see about putting information on the EBSS/ERIC committee web page. Judy Beck then discussed what was going on with the content in the database. Highlights included: 48,000+ records added since 2004 (25,000 records in 2006) Added 180 discrete journal provides have signed contracts, now up to 600+ journals 470 non-journal providers Goal - Processing time 30 days or less; current mean 24 days (~1,000 records/week) Developing an approach to manage the ‘02-‘03 gap. (There are ~160 journals with missing issues.) [Kate Corby indicated they should be looking at 2001 as well.] Improving serials management system * Trying to get as much info from providers electronically Vendor Data feeds are now in xml and ERIC began providing updates to published content in Oct. 2006 An audience member asked what was going to be done about the pre-1966 microfiche such as the Manpower fiche and its index and other early odd collections. Pete indicated they were not part of the scope of the digitations project and then asked if we were interested in making them available. The consensus was yes, we would like to have them available. Sue Weiss then talked about the thesaurus and indexing of the materials. She indicated the thesaurus was alive and well. Purpose of the thesaurus is to standardize the indexing and facilitate search and retrieval. ERIC users (including folks from EBSS) and ERIC staff are collaborating and contributing to the recent changes to the thesaurus. The staff is in the process of correcting, adding and expanding scope notes and adding more related terms. They are also making accommodations for terms with multiple spelling options. Circular references are being tracked down and corrected. And they are very selectively reinstating deleted descriptors such as blacks in addition to African Americans. They hope to release an update to the thesaurus in March 2007. The indexing software they are using is helping them identify new terms that can be added as new descriptors and/or be included in scope notes. There is a vocabulary review group which includes many former clearinghouse folks and librarians; will also include specialists when needed. Individuals can also make suggestions for new terms via the web site or directly to Sue. Additional discussion of thesaurus/indexing issues included: The audience indicated the need for more cross references. An audience member suggested that a more robust search capability of the thesaurus would be helpful. A suggestion was also made that they try to use more terminology that practitioners use such as inclusion not inclusive schools. The issue of some journals appearing as EDs and not EJS was also brought up again. - Some journal articles are coming directly from authors through individual submission. When they do they get an ED not and EJ. Less than 1% of database fall into this category. Can’t they be flagged and fixed? Not as easy as it seems. Not coming in as a journal submission but they are getting the publication type designation – journal. So it the PT field designation is now a more reliable source of journals than the EJ designation. Is the explanatory information from print edition available anywhere? – Some of it is now available online. Is it available to vendors? Not at the moment. If the information is provided to vendors they will include it? Vendors indicated they would make it available if they received it. Issue of research methodology/design was also brought up. They are looking at expanding their terminology and are looking at where to include this information – descriptors or pub type field. The ERIC User’s Committee will be supplying them with some suggestions. Peer reviewed designator in legacy file is not on CSC’s docket. However, ERIC User group committee members are charged with making a proposal to CSC; if a method can be devised that’s cost effective (and effective) CSC will take it to the DOE for approval. Larry Henry noted that this is a harder problem to solve than one might think as among other things there are big issues with authority control of journal title names in the legacy file. Also many records do not have ISSNs. The issue of education level and/or grade levels was also brought up again. Sue indicated this is part of the record but not necessarily searchable. It is only assigned when material content clearly indicates a grade level. They will not make assumptions about grade level. They are still doing both specific grade levels and broader term. The audience indicated the more they can include the better. There seemed to be a question on what field the vendors are searching. If the information is in the descriptor field, it is being searched as if it’s a main subject. But the Education Level field is not searchable at the moment. Can the Ed. Level field be made available for searching? CSC will work on this. There is drop-down menu for Ed. Level in EBSCO. There has been a change as to where this information is being put which seems to be causing a retrieval issue. ERIC will look into this. Summary compiled from notes by Sarah Beasley, Nancy Dupree and Judy Walker. This entry was posted on Thursday, March 8th, 2007
	Midwinter 2007 Highlights Probably the biggest news: the contractor has gotten permission to digitize all the ERIC microfiche back to 1966 and will make them available as copyright permission is obtained and digitization completed. Contact information form for copyright holders willing to grant permission is on the web. In other news, a March update of the Thesaurus is being planned. Much of the change will be correction of errors made in the past, eliminating circular references, etc. The contractor is also willing to try to get permission to include peer review status of journals in older records. The problem is how do they do this. Ulrichs is one possible source of the information, but apparently it is only a current database. It could not tell us whether a specific journal was peer reviewed in a specific prior year. I’ve agreed to try to figure out a straightforward, easily implemented, and valid way to do this. If you think such a thing exists, please send your suggestions to me, corby@msu.edu. The 2001-2003 indexing gap for some titles is still in the working on it stage. No solution as yet available. Not announced at Midwinter, but apparently could have been– the news release is dated January 14, 2007 — the new Steering Committee for ERIC has been formed and there are familiar librarian names on the list. This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007
	ERIC Users Group Meeting, ALA Annual 2006 ERIC User’s Group Open Meeting Notes 2006 Annual American Library Conference New Orleans, June 27, 2006 Judy Walker, Chair of the EBSS’s ERIC Users Group Committee welcomed attendees and introduced Nancy Cawley and Pete Dagutis from CSC and Beth Close from EBSCO. Representatives from Cambridge Scientific and APA were also present and introduced themselves. Before turning the podium over to Nancy Cawley for an update, Judy mentioned several ERIC discussion groups that have been started by ERIC for input into content, indexing and the Thesaurus. When Nancy Cawley posted a message to EBSS-L very few people responded, which was disappointing since there always seems to be lot of interest and discussion at conferences and on the listserv. Judy participated in a thesaurus discussion group conference call in June and found it productive. She strongly encouraged members to join at least one of the groups and let their concerns be heard. Nancy Cawley then brought the group up-to-date on what was going on with ERIC using a power point presentation. Here are the highlights of that presentation. 32,000 new records released in ERIC 600+ journals indexed – more than 26,000 articles 450+ Non-journal sources (organizations and publishers of non-journal content) 550+ Online submissions released to the public New Data Format for Vendors New format XML for vendor reload will be available this summer XML and original format will be made available to vendors through 2006 Monthly feeds will include data corrections – i.e. changes in dates, volumes, etc. There will be an online form for folks to send in corrections. For now we can send them either to the Help Desk or Pete Dagutis at pdagutis@csc.com. Expect a 3-4 month turn around time. Timing of update to vendor’s repositories under their control Structured Abstract Pilot was launched in April at AERA Conference What are Structured Abstracts? > Present factual, objective information about a study for user decision-making > Pre-determined headings engender consistency in reporting > Improve user’s capacity to identify and evaluate relevant research Available in Online Submission System found on the ERIC website Primarily for individual contributors to ERIC (researchers, others with materials to share) Contributors may select traditional or structured abstract to include with submission Contributor feedback encouraged Training materials and video briefings will be available on the website in August covering: > What structured abstracts are > What an ERIC structured abstract looks like > What kinds of materials are best-suited for structured abstracts > How structured abstracts benefit education Coming Attractions (will post to EBSS-L when new features are released) New search engine July release Faster searches Helps correct issues this group has brought up Automatic stemming removed Enables future refinements such as sorting results, term highlighting Information on changes available on ERIC site in July Redesigned Web site Fall release New home page Site restructured to accommodate growing suite of user-driven features Updated, streamlined text Refreshed look and feel Information on changes will be available in August Training Materials for searching, the Thesaurus and other features Video Briefings Web-based tutorials Understanding ERIC Indexing by ALA Midwinter ERIC Discussion Groups via conference calls Faculty and librarians are encouraged to join these discussion groups Content Goal – Gather input on journal titles, information sources in ERIC Group formed in response to EBSS interest in new content in ERIC • First conference call held in May • Next discussion in July Thesaurus • Goals - Gather feedback on maintenance issues and suggestions for enhancing training • Lay groundwork for Vocabulary Review Group • First conference call in June • Next discussion July/August Indexing • First call to be held in July/August timeframe Beth Close from EBSCO made a few brief remarks. First she indicated that EBSCO is happy to work with CSC and appreciates getting the reload on schedule. Their philosophy is that the database producers know the data best therefore they do not impose content information on proprietary data such as adding peer review indicators to the database. She also indicated there will be a new education database coming out from EBSCO in August and encouraged folks to take a look at it. As a response to Beth’s comments about peer identification, CSC commented that providing this information retrospectively has a high priority for them. CSC is listening and trying to be responsive to the needs of their audience. The last part of the session was open for questions/comments/discussion from the audience. 1) Will structured abstracts be searchable? Yes, they will be searchable and will have metadata attached. A follow-up question asked specifically about research design indicators. CSC indicated they are very aware of the need to be able to search by research design and would include that. 2) Will the Open URL pilot project be broadened to other schools? CSC is working with 10 schools/universities on this project that allows them to connect to their own full text journal holdings via the My ERIC feature. They are encountering some problems so they won’t be opening up the project in the near future. 3) Someone in the audience commented about the electronic journals in the database. They were concerned because these journals are being assigned ED numbers and not EJ numbers like the rest of the journals. Did either Nancy or Pete know why this was being done? Pete and Nancy didn’t feel they had enough background to address this issue but would take it back with them to find out why? Members of the audience indicated this is a real problem that needs to be addressed. 4) A follow-up question to #3 asked the representative from Cambridge Scientific - How does CSA generate publication type tabs? The CSA rep indicated they read the DT field to generate the tabs. This reinforced the issue of making sure the ejournals get the correct designation in the DT field. But even if it’s correct in the DT field the ED number confuses users because they are use to discriminating between journals and ERIC documents by the accession call number prefix. It was recommended that CSC create new prefixes for the books (which also causes problems for the user) and perhaps the ejournals if they are not going to give them an EJ designation. 5) Is CSC publicizing online submissions through education associations? No they haven’t, but will consider it. This discussion broadened to include the issue of getting older EDs converted to full text. This is a copyright issue. The original authors need to give CSC permission to reproduce the document electronically. Faculty and/or author (must be copyright holder) of these older documents can contact CSC to give them permission. They can contact Pete Dagutis directly at pdagutis@csc.com. We need to make this known to our faculty and CSC needs to do a better job of publicizing this. 6) Are there any plans to create MARC records for EDs? Nancy, indicated that was not part of their contract but sounds like a great grant project. 7) The APA representative wanted to know how CSC was mapping new index terms to older DEs or add new headings to older records. This prompted yet another discussion of this critical issue. CSC is finally understanding the importance of this issue. It was discussed during the thesaurus conference call. There is still much debate on how to solve the problem. APA indicated they go back and change all the records when they change or add a term. CSC is close to making a decision on how they will deal with the issue. 8) Sarah Beasley complimented CSC on their version of thesaurus saying it was accessible and works well. Nancy Cawley indicated its structure was a direct result of feedback from folks like us. 9) Another major issue – the Gap 2002-2003 was also brought up. CSC indicated this is an issue “outside the scope of their contract” so comments and direct feedback should go to the Department of Education. Both the EBSCO and CSA representatives were very interested in the issue and would like to explore it some more. Kate Corby will be contacting them with a list of journals involved. The ERIC User’s Group Steering committee will pursue the issue with the Department of Education. 10) The topic of descriptors also came up. There seems to be a ‘rumor’ going around that no more than seven descriptors would be used for a document. Pete Dagutis indicated there was no limit to the number of descriptors for a document, but seven was about the average. 11) Three different speakers indicated there is an issue with the ‘grade level descriptors’. Researchers need BOTH the specific grade level and the broader ranged descriptors such as preschool, middle school, etc. Because of the great interest in the thesaurus and indexing CSC indicated they would be their indexing team to midwinter. This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 19th, 2006
	New papers added from online submissions At the AERA conference in San Francisco the ERIC contractor representatives announced that materials received through the online submission system were now being added to the database. The System for submitting papers had been up for more than a year but papers had not actually been added to the database. Now new submissions will be reviewed and added within 30 days. This entry was posted on Friday, June 9th, 2006
	ERIC Users Group Meeting, ALA Midwinter 2006 ERIC Users Group Meeting January 22, 2006 1:30-3:30pm San Antonio Convention Center Judy Walker, Chair, ERIC Planning Committee, welcomed attendees, made some introductory remarks, and then introduced Nancy Cawley, Outreach/Communication Lead on the ERIC project from Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) who introduced the CSC speakers, Larry Henry, title; and Pete Degutis, Project Director. The CSC speakers presented an introduction to ERIC and explained that the CSC staff obtain the content, process it, make it available on ERIC’s government web site, and distribute content to database vendors such as CSA, Ebsco, Ovid, and ProQuest among others. The remainder of the presentation was an update on three areas: content, functionality, and the thesaurus. Content Update 20,000 new records added since June 2005. 560+ journal titles are under agreement 380+ non-journal sources are under agreement CSC is working on agreements with other sources. Weekly updates of content are made on the government site. The list of journals, both those under and non-under agreement, is posted on the government web site. Current database vendors include: CSA, Ebsco, OCLC FirstSearch, OhioLink, Ovid, ProQuest, and Thomson/Dialog. Vendors update content on their own schedules. ERIC requires that each vendor reload the database and thesaurus annually. New metadata elements added to ERIC records recently, like the Peer Review field, will be made available to vendors soon. Vendors have implemented the thesaurus in different ways. Thesaurus feed to vendors in XML starts in January 2006. Thesaurus Update Synonyms lacking to postable terms. Scope notes being fixed. Starting talks with vendors and subject communities on terminology. Functionality Update OpenURL beta started. Working now to extend OpenURL linking to more libraries. Citation management feature added. Allows direct export of citations to reference software like EndNote, ProCite. · URL copy and paste problem fixed. Boolean search bugs fixed in the government site Advanced Search. Online submission will include structured abstracts. · Questions may be sent to Nancy Cawley at ncawley@csc.com Open Q&A Session Q1. Is CSC being sold? A1. No comment (said they didn’t know) Q2. Will usage statistics be available now that ERIC users can identify their affiliation with a library? A2. No. Suggested that libraries might collect data when OpenURLs are referred back to a library’s OpenURL resolver. Q3. Can a person using a library computer be automatically authorized to view full-text articles through OpenURL? A3. Thinking about doing this through external sources. Q4. Are major and minor descriptors no longer assigned to content? A4. Yes, descriptors are no longer differentiated as major or minor. The number of descriptors assigned to a record now ranges from 7 to 12. No distinction is made in descriptors between major and minor content. Q5. It appears that when grade level descriptors are assigned now, broader descriptors such as secondary education, middle schools, etc. are not assigned. A5. That is correct. Suggestion made to rethink that decision. Q6. Are we losing any fields in the new record structure? A6. ERIC has a long document that describes the metadata elements included in records. Some obsolete fields will disappear, such as clearinghouse code. These will also disappear from the legacy (pre-2004) records). ERIC will consider posting the metadata document on the web site and establishing a working group to discuss the matter. Q7. What is the status of covering the library science subject area? A7. Working on adding source journals in this area. Q8. Comment about what can be done to encourage publishers to sign agreements for those journals that are not yet under agreement. A8. The ERIC Planning Committee will discuss this. Q9. Why are some book publishers included as non-journal content sources when the full-text of the books is not available through ERIC? And why aren’t there many associations included and non-journals sources? A9. ERIC believes educators are interested in learning about books published in education. However, ERIC’s priorities are journals and gray literature. Book records presently account for 5% of ERIC records. ERIC is actively approaching associations. Some associations won’t provide full-text for financial reasons but ERIC is still trying to at least index their publications. There are many discussion underway with non-journal content sources. Perhaps some associations will allow full-text after a period of time (embargo period). Q10. Why are some records appearing in the database without abstracts? A10. That is a processing error to be corrected. Q11. What is the status of gaps in the coverage of certain journals? A11. 2004-2005 content is fully indexed for journals under agreement. ERIC’s focus is on new agreements and sources that are totally missing from ERIC. Q12. Will ERIC content be indexed in Google? A12. All ERIC content is in Google, Google Scholar, Yahoo!, and MSN since June 2005. Small Group Discussions followed the general Q&A session. Following the small groups, Judy Walker wrapped up the meeting by saying that the ERIC Planning Committee will put up information on the EBSS Weblog and may do an RSS feed to keep members informed. The committee will conduct virtual meetings with CSC prior to ALA Annual, and will arrange a meeting with vendors in New Orleans. Nancy Cawley is putting out an ERIC e-newsletter. You can send your email to her to be signed up for the newsletter. This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 8th, 2006
	More details on ERIC Updates From an ERIC News Release as quoted by Gary Price for the Resource Shelf: “ERIC is pleased to announce the availability of a substantial amount of new 2004 and 2005 content. Highlights of this content addition include approximately 20,000 new records for users to search, more than 10,000 bibliographic journal records from more than 300 current journals, and over 1000 ERIC documents (most documents and some journal articles are available in full text). To provide access to as much new material as possible, ERIC has included more than 9000 journal records that have been acquired, but only partially processed.” http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/resources/html/news/eric_news_27.html This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 7th, 2005
	EBSCO has successfully loaded ERIC records Good news. I just read a message from Beth Close indicating the new ERIC materials are now available via EBSCO Host. They added 6788 new records and will update the database as new data is received from the contractor. I have already done a little searching and things look good. This entry was posted on Friday, August 26th, 2005 by Judy Walker
	Interesting comment about ERIC thesaurus I received the following message from a CSA rep.Although the info about the content upload was not new, the statement about the thesaurus is. I guess we will have to watch this one closely. Judy Walker UNC Charlotte Dear CSA Customers, The long-awaited update for the ERIC database was received from the ERIC contractor last week and the 6,788 records were added to the database on August 12, 2005. The database is now up-to-date and we anticipate receiving and loading subsequent updates during the first week of each month. A new edition of the thesaurus is expected in early October and this will be made available online as soon as we receive it. Amy Mather Senior Project Specialist, Web Development CSA This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 17th, 2005
	New ERIC content becoming available through vendors CSC released the new ERIC content to vendors in the end of July. There were some problems with the original feeds but vendors have been working out the kinks. As of 8/15/05 Cambridge Scientific Abstract is showing new content. Beth Close, from EBSCO indicates that they should have it up shortly. Please, play with the content and let them know if you find any problems. Judy Walker, Chair EBSS ERIC User Group This entry was posted on Monday, August 15th, 2005 4 Responses to “New ERIC content becoming available through vendors” 1. Alex Hodges Says: August 16th, 2005 at 10:12 am Judy, Thanks for this information. Is there any word about OVID’s version? Alex Hodges American University 2. Judy Walker Says: August 16th, 2005 at 11:24 am Alex, There are several folks on the ERIC User Committee that receive ERIC via OVID. But I haven’t heard anything from them yet. I suspect all the vendors are hustling to get the content up. You could just try a canned search repeatedly over the next few days to see if it comes up. And if no one else has posted, let us know. Judy Walker UNC Charlotte 3. Kate Corby Says: August 16th, 2005 at 11:59 am I heard from Ovid this morning. They said “We are finalizing the contact and will have the data up soon.” I had also been in contact with OCLC FirstSearch but have not heard from them since a “soon” last week. 4. Alex Hodges Says: September 1st, 2005 at 1:11 pm Good news: New content is definitely in ERIC via OVID. Hooray!
	Two weeks later, additional journals The ERIC database continues to grow. I checked the list of journals indexed and found many new titles that had not been on the list two weeks ago. I’ll paste them here as a way to give readers a sense of how fast the database is growing. I won’t be able to generate this list in an ongoing way because it is too time consuming. This new set of journals includes some titles that I’m surprised to see being given priority. Some seem only peripherally related to education. Still, generally speaking, growth is good. Active Learning in Higher Education the Journal of the Institute for Learning and Teaching Advances in Physiology Education Alberta Journal of Educational Research American Annals of the Deaf American Indian Quarterly American Journal of Evaluation American Journal of Health Behavior American Journal of Health Promotion Applied Psychological Measurement Assessment Autism: The International Journal of Research and Practice British Journal of Learning Disabilities Bulletin of Science Technology and Society Childhood A Global Journal of Child Research Counseling Psychologist Curriculum Inquiry Early Childhood Research Quarterly Education and Urban Society Educational Administration Quarterly Educational and Psychological Measurement Educational Policy Educational Psychology Educational Studies Educational Theory Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties Environment and Behavior European Journal of Education European Journal of Special Needs Education Evaluation Review Exceptionality Education Canada Family Journal Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families Gender and Education High School Journal Higher Education in Europe Higher Education Quarterly International Journal of Art and Design Education International Journal of Disability Development and Education Journal of Adolescent Research Journal of Black Psychology Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse Journal of Classroom Interaction Journal of College Admission Journal of College Student Retention Research Theory and Practice Journal of Computer Assisted Learning Journal of Drug Education Journal of Early Adolescence Journal of Early Childhood Literacy Journal of Education and Work Journal of Educational Measurement Journal of Experimental Psychology Applied Journal of Experimental Psychology General Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition Journal of Family Issues Journal of Hispanic Higher Education Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability Journal of Interpersonal Violence Journal of Loss and Trauma Journal of Marriage and Family Journal of Philosophy of Education Journal of Research in Reading Journal of Research in Rural Education Journal of Research on Adolescence Journal of Research on Technology in Education Journal of Social Studies Research Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness Kappa Delta Pi Record Language Learning Learning Disabilities Research and Practice Literacy Modern Language Journal Perspectives in Education Perspectives London policy and practice in higher education Policy Review Psychological Bulletin Psychological Review Quality in Higher Education Reading in a Foreign Language Religious Education Rural Sociology Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research School Psychology International School Psychology Quarterly School Psychology Review Sign Language Studies Social Forces Studies in Continuing Education Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior Support for Learning The Educational Forum Urban Education World Englishes Written Communication This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 10th, 2005
	APA format for ERIC documents Here are sample APA reference list formats for ERIC documents, provided on consultation with the American Psychological Association. For technical reports obtained through ERIC online: Mead, J. V. (1992). Looking at old photographs: Investigating the teacher tales that novice teachers bring with them (Report No. NCRTL-RR-92-4). East Lansing, MI: National Center for Research on Teacher Learning. Retrieved July 21, 2005, from the ERIC database. (ERIC No. ED346082) For journal article obtained through ERIC online: Klassen, R. M. (2004). A cross-cultural investigation of the efficacy beliefs of South Asian immigrant and Anglo Canadian nonimmigrant early adolescents. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96, 731-742. Retrieved July 21, 2005, from the ERIC database. (ERIC No. EJ685035) All of the above formats assume the researcher used the full text. If they used only the abstract, they would simply change "Retrieved" to "Abstract retrieved."
	Journals indexed in ERIC The first release of new content included indexing for 113 journals. The list on the web site at http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb =true&_pageLabel=JournalPage&logoutLink=false includes all journals indexed in the previous version of ERIC as well. The 113 journals currently being indexed are: 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 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 This entry was posted on Monday, July 25th, 2005 at 3:50 pm
	Sending links to online ERIC Documents Since emailing records/links is not possible, it can be important to know how to construct a link to an ERIC document. To link directly to a document: copy the link from the ERIC database. e.g. javascript:popUp (’/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED485166?) cut off the first two sections and the last two characters. place http://www.eric.ed.gov/ in front of the remainder to yield a working persistent url: http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED485166 This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2005 at 8:49