After the initial load of new material in June/July 2005, there appears to be an emphasis on journal indexing for current indexing. In August they added 4525 items, only 240 were EDs. In September 3392 items went in, 73 EDs.

I looked at how many items were being indexed per month before the changes, how many are being indexed now and what that might mean for how long to fill the gap. In addition to the obvious problems with such a rough model, there is the fact that the new system generated a huge initial output that they have not come close to matching since. So very roughly it appears that it will take somewhere between a year and a half and three years to catch up with the number of citations that would have been expected under the prior system.

Several people are bringing journal coverage gaps to my attention. The clearinghouses officially closed in December 2003 and the contract with the new ERIC provider assumes that they indexed through the end of that year. (It specifies that the new contractor will index beginning with 2004 publications.) But in fact there are issues of some important journals from 2003, and even 2002 that are not in the database. I checked 10 highly rated education journals and found only two had complete indexing for 2002 and 2003. For most, coverage is missing for several issues.

List of journals covered

On June 25, 2005, the list of journals indexed in ERIC became available online. It includes all journals from the earlier version of ERIC and so is not a list of currently indexed titles. Those are indicated by a . I pulled out the list and here it is as of July 25, 2005. A recheck on August 10, 2005 showed an additional 93 titles, so the list is growing quickly.

The contractor has repeatedly assured ERIC users that coverage will exceed prior ERIC coverage levels. There will be some efforts to label items as an indicator of quality (e.g. peer review status) but practitioner oriented materials and other non-research items will not be totally eliminated from the database

(p. 8) COR approval of the contractor's proposed standards and criteria and specified types of non-journal materials is required prior to implementation.... Screening criteria for conference papers. ..., the contractor, after fully considering Steering Committee, COR, and public recommendations, shall provide draft screening criteria for conference papers .... COR approval of the contractor's proposed screening criteria is required prior to implementation. (COR is the contract officer at the Department of Education)

Research Triangle Institute (RTI) subcontractor for curator work

The contractor shall provide skilled staff to meet contract requirements, including a project director, technical experts, and curators with expertise in closing the achievement gap, educational practices that improve academic achievement and promote learning, research methodology, and the 16 ERIC topics. (Contract p. 11)

The curators role was clarified at the ERIC Users Group meeting in Boston in January 2005. They are the folks who are actually selecting items to be indexed. The actual indexing is being done by CSC employees.