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| p. 3 "...information on closing the achievement gap, educational practices that improve academic achievement and promote learning, and topics that have been covered by the ERIC clearinghouses." | The draft SOW merely stated that the new database would include topics currently covered by the ERIC Clearinghouses. Concerns were voice about the narrow language an the omission of the Adjunct Clearinghouses. This language, included in multiple places is the only specification of additional topics that I can find. |
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p. 9 "...They [Content experts] may also recommend journals that are not directly related to education but include occasional education articles and meet the approved standards and criteria. " |
This addition make explicit that Content experts will be able to suggest more than strictly education journals to be included in the database. |
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p. 11 "The contractor shall index ...including international materials written in English. " "In addition, the contractor shall use electronic harvesting software, as specified in the proposal, to discover education articles in other journals that are not directly related to education but meet approved standards and criteria. The contractor shall also index these selected articles. " |
Two more additions that broaden the contents of the database beyond what was stated in the Draft. |
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p. 17 "It [the database search engine] shall enable users to quickly find the database materials that are directly relevant to their problems or questions." DRAFT SOW p. 15 "It shall enable users to quickly find all database materials that meet their search criteria." |
These two quotes are the same portion of the two documents. This change is a bit of a cliff-hanger. Just exactly why was it made? Certainly the new language is a more desireable outcome, but is it attainable? How will it be measured? User satisfaction is notoriously unreliable for this type of question. |
| p. 17 "...spell check on search terms..." |
This is to be an added feature of the search engine. |
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| p. 4 "All journals selected for the new database will be comprehensively indexed." | Librarians may welcome comprehensive indexing but many in the Clearinghouses prided themselves on enhancing quality through selectivity. It is interesting that an administration which is trying to emphasize empirical research is eliminating selectivity here. |
| p. 11 "...the contractor shall add all articles in approved journals and the selected non-journal materials within one month of the publication or release date (including release of digital materials on websites) and shall add selected unpublished material within one month of receipt." | Timely additions to the database will be welcomed by all. There has been some concern expressed that items outside the regular flow could not be added if they were discovered beyond the timeframes mandated here. |
| p. 12 "The contractor shall encourage organizations to submit abstracts and indexing information and shall use publisher and author abstracts and information to the maximum extent possible." | 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. |
| p. 13 "The contractor shall use automated indexing insofar as feasible and shall use indexing services and methods as necessary to assure that all materials are accurately and reliably indexed. " | Automated indexing also raises questions of quality. |
| p. 13 "The metadata shall provide the user with information about the descriptive qualities of each database entry. Possible quality indicators include the following: (1) Type of material, e.g., journal article, technical report, conference paper, book, or videotape. (2) Type of information, e.g., literature review, research summary or synthesis, qualitative research report, correlational and descriptive statistical report, advocacy report. (3) Whether a journal is peer-reviewed. (4) The selection rate of articles submitted to a journal. (5) Circulation of a journal. (6) Whether authors must pay the publisher to publish their articles." |
Facilitating critical evaluation of sources is a welcome addition. EBSS Reference Sources and Services Committee has raised the peer review issue with ERIC. |
| p. 13 "the contractor shall provide a brief written assessment of the ERIC Thesaurus to determine changes needed to maximize database searching and retrieval by both inexperienced and experienced database users. The assessment shall also consider changes needed to ensure interoperability with other ED information sources..." |
This is a complex issue tied to metadata and interoperability concerns. The SOW refers to http://www.ed.gov/internal/EDWebMetadata/ and http://www.ed.gov/admin/reference/index.jsp as sources for the contractor to consult. I have not seen any in-depth critiques of this section yet. |