Suggested Language

Legislators:
Address to The Honorable (senator or representative name), then say Dear Senator (last name), Dear Congressman or Dear Congresswoman (last name)

Department of Education:
Address to The Honorable Rod Paige, then say Dear Mr. Secretary.

Address to Mr. Jeff Halsted, Contract Specialist, then say Dear Mr. Halsted.

I'm pleased to have an opportunity to comment on the ERIC Draft Statement of Work.

This letter is written as comment on Statement of Work Reference-Number-ERIC2003.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Statement of Work number ERIC2003.

Planned changes in the ERIC system have raised concerns for many of us at (insert institution or organizational name).

As an educator I use the ERIC database and ERIC Clearinghouses regularly.

Teacher educators have long relied on ERIC to be a wide ranging source of education related information for ourselves and our students.

I am writing as a librarian representing myself and my colleagues at (name library).

The (insert institutional or organizational name) is deeply concerned by proposed changes in the ERIC system

Many proposals in the Statement of Work that will enhance the database features. Faster updating, the addition of full text, quality information about sources, electronic paper submission and updated coding procedures will all be welcome improvements.

I am pleased to see proposals that will keep the database up-to-date, offer more full-text, and add quality information about the journals. These changes will make the database more useful.

Concerns about the proposal
(split into indexing, clearinghouses, and other concerns)

Indexing:

The Statement of Work directs the contractor to encourage author submitted abstracts and use publisher and author abstracts and indexing information to the maximum extent possible. Producer provided and automatic indexing will reduce the value of ERIC significantly by reducing the quality and consistency of the abstracting and indexing of database entries. The consistency and specificity of the current ERIC indexing protocols are invaluable both to researchers and to less knowledgeable users who tend to use very specific search terms. Effective indexing is a skill that cannot be taught quickly, nor are authors likely to have the objective distance from their subject necessary for the task. The ERIC Thesaurus remains an invaluable tool for accessing information in ERIC. Consistency in indexing is critical to preserving the functionality of the system; major revisions to current indexing practices could lead to a great loss in the effectiveness of database search retrieval.

Apparently for economic reasons the new contractor is directed to use author provided abstracts and indexing and automatic indexing as much as possible. The Thesaurus will be revised. Inconsistency or decreased specificity in the indexing process will have a detrimental effect on search retrieval making the database an unreliable resource. The best indexing databases available (Medline, PsycINFO, ERIC) do not economize in this way, because even minor tradeoffs in quality of indexing lead to major problems in the utility of the database.

The move to comprehensive indexing of selected journals is one aspect of the proposal that raises concern. The broad reach of the current database brings in education related items from other disciplines. If coverage is limited to selected education journals and this article-by-article selection of items is lost, the database will be far less valuable for researchers. The Department of Education has made service to practitioners a priority, but it would be counterproductive to cripple research in the process.

The presence of respected scholars in each Clearinghouse ensures that the most current research in the field is being acquired for the database. Pre-approving a list of journals, conferences, and associations as the sole source of documents to be included in the database mechanizes a process that should be left to those with expert knowledge in the field of education, and eliminates many sources of useful documents.

The current ERIC system creates one of the best indexes on the market. Both the depth or specificity of indexing and the quality of Thesaurus maintenance are exceptional. Authors and sponsoring organizations would be unlikely to provide abstracts or indexing approaching the quality of current ERIC citations.

The statement of work gives no indication of how extensive the new ERIC database will be. It mandates that all selected journals will be indexed comprehensively. There will be a panel of content experts to decide which journals are selected. Currently the database indexes about 400 journals comprehensively, but it covers more than a 1,000 by selecting only the education related articles from a wide range of scholarly journals. The new ERIC may not be able to reach so broadly, and in so limiting itself will also limit its utility. Journals are not the only area where content will be limited. The panel of experts will also be asked to decide upon approved sources of non-journal materials. This limited list of possible sources may make it possible for the contractor to construct the database without the expertise currently employed, but the product cannot avoid being significantly weakened.

Advocates of this new ERIC have repeatedly used the medical model. They point to PubMed as a successful example of government outreach that serves researchers, practitioners, and the general public with health information. PubMed also includes specific professional indexing of a huge number of information sources and clear divisions of content areas for its different constituencies. These are the factors that make it a success. The Department of Education cannot hope to produce an exemplary product without high quality data.

Clearinghouses:

Apparently the Department hopes to save money by eliminating the decentralized Clearinghouse system. The Clearinghouses hold a tremendous wealth of information not only about the field of education in all its diverse aspects, but also about the education information needs of our nation's educators.If education is a national priority then we cannot afford to eliminate this valuable resource. The Clearinghouses are familiar and trusted resources. We must not decide it is too difficult or too expensive to use them to help transform our schools.

Failing to mandate the continuation of the Clearinghouses is a huge error. The Clearinghouses were established 35+ years ago at centers of expertise in their various specialties. In the intervening years that expertise has grown exponentially, both with respect to the subjects each Clearinghouse covers and in knowledge of the kinds of information or knowledge access questions that the particular subject generates. The ERIC Clearinghouses are the most widely utilized education information resource currently provided by the Department of Education. They respond to over 150,000 emails and phone calls annually from users seeking education related information. AskERIC was a revolutionary service when it was first developed. Many doubted the feasibility of the concept. Any user could write or call and get a personalized bibliography to answer any education related question. Now many libraries provide similar services and most folks in education have used AskERIC on more than one occasion. The Clearinghouses also produce web pages, specialized databases like the Test Locator, and publications on current research, programs and practices.

To replace Clearinghouse expertise the Department of Education proposes to centralize indexing and user response. The new ERIC will rely on three people from each Clearinghouse subject area who will meet once to help decide what journals and what sources of papers to index for the database. Beyond that one meeting the advisors will be expected to offer suggestions and monitor needs electronically. Expertise in the wider scope of each subject area will be lost, as will the exemplary user assistance to which the contact statistics clearly attest.

ERIC Digests, bibliographies, and other publications are widely read and trusted sources of information for instructors, parents, graduate students, and educational administrators. Many ERIC users do not have the time to read the large number of journals and scholarly papers that are published each year, and rely on ERIC’s syntheses to stay abreast of the current literature.

One of the most valuable services offered by ERIC has been the AskERIC service and the availability of subject experts at each of the Clearinghouses to respond to a variety of education-related questions. These individuals are not only intimately familiar with the database and how to search it most efficiently, but they also refer users to a variety of important associations, organizations, and related web-based resources that provide information beyond the scope of the ERIC database. Even in an increasingly technological society, we must remember that not everyone is computer literate, and the elimination of a personalized question-answering service will be extremely detrimental to a large group of users, including the poor, the less educated, and the elderly.

The Department seems to be trying to replace the ERIC Clearinghouses with a centralized clearinghouse. The What Works Clearinghouse that will be a dissemination center for information about educational research. It will evaluate completed research on seven or eight topics each year and make these completed "Evidence Reports" available to the public on the Web. The government's decision to emphasize evaluation of practice information for teachers and administrators should not come at the cost of their most successful outreach program. The idea, implicit but not clearly stated in this move, is that the broad dissemination of education information is not helpful. That teachers and administrators are merely confused by the wealth of information, and researchers do not need the analysis and synthesis the Clearinghouses provide. As if to prove this point, in January the Department removed from its web page a link to the preeminent synthesis documents of the ERIC Clearinghouses, the ERIC Digests, despite the fact that use figures showed they were the most heavily used items on the page.

The Statement of Work replaces the Clearinghouse system with a more centralized entity, coordinated and controlled by a single contractor. The new contractor would replace Clearinghouse expertise by using three content experts in each of the current Clearinghouse topic areas to select materials for inclusion in the database. Despite their simple names, the current Clearinghouses each cover a broad range of subjects that could not easily be encompassed by the expertise of three individuals, however carefully chosen.

Other concerns:

The proposal states that there should be no disruption of public access to the ERIC database. This is a worthy goal but it is included in a document with tight time frame and I wonder whether a smooth transition can be achieved within the calendar provided.

Much vital information is not provided in this proposal. Will indexing be maintained during the transfer process? According to the timeline provided, some of the new contractor's processes for identifying sources of information and setting indexing protocols will take place after the Clearinghouses have been disbanded. Longer time allowances for some transfer functions would minimize the potential for confusion and interrupted access.

A strong global education system is a way to help offset terrorism and help people achieve the skills needed to reach and maintain a decent standard of living. Let's not weaken a vital resource.

To Congress:
I ask you to contact Secretary of Education Rod Paige and demand that he reconsider this proposal and retain the services currently offered by the ERIC system for the future.

I'm confident that such drastic constriction of the educational information system was not what Congress intended when it passed the Education Sciences Reform Act in 2002. I hope that you will take action to save this valuable resource.

I look forward to hearing about your response to these important issues.

To the Education Department:
Please reconsider what you are doing to an invaluable resource.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment. I hope that the concerns expressed will lead to significant revision of the Statement of Work.

Please do not allow false economies to ruin a valuable resource. Retroactively repairing poor indexing and uniformative abstracts would be much more costly than simply doing the job well initially.