ERIC (Ebsco)

ERIC (Ebsco)

The Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database consists of the Resources in Education (RIE) file of document citations and the Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE) file of journal article citations from over 980 professional journals in the field of education. ERIC is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. ERIC includes full-text of the available ERIC documents from 1993-present. ERIC also includes full-text for over 400 of the journal articles.

ACCESSING ERIC
ERIC, 1966 to present, is available from the IUB Libraries page: http://www.libraries.iub.edu/findinfo

Click on the link to ERIC (EBSCO) located in the “Top Ten Resources” section.

SEARCHING ERIC

Select the Advanced Search tab.

Enter your terms in the text box labeled Find or select a term from the thesaurus (see Using the ERIC Online Thesaurus description).

If desired, limit your search by date published, journal or document, publication type, etc.

Click the Search button.

The search results will be a title list. Place additional limits to the search by clicking on the Search History tab. Each search in the search history is numbered. Searches may be combined with other searches in the list or new terms using Boolean operators (and, or).
Example: S1 and S2
S1 and de academic achievement.

VIEWING ERIC RECORDS
Search results are displayed 10 records to a screen.

Use the scroll bar to scroll through the results.

Click on the arrow buttons or the page numbers at the top or the bottom of the result list to view more titles.

Click on the title of the record to see more information about the article.
IMPORTANT: Valuable information appears at the end of each record.

The IUB Libraries own this title. Search IUCAT for availability. This indicates the journal title is held at IUB, search IUCAT to see which library and volumes are held there.

Linked full text. Search IUCAT for availability. This indicates that the item is available on line. Click on the phrase Linked full text to get the full text of that article.

Full Text from EDRS. This indicates that full text of the ERIC document may be available. Click on Full Text from EDRS to access the EDRS file. (Note: Documents with publication date 1993-present and with copyright releases are available.)

Search IUCAT for availability. An IUCAT search will determine if the item is available in any of the Indiana University Libraries statewide.

MARKING ERIC CITATIONS

Click in the ADD file folder to the right of each citation to be printed, saved or emailed. If no items are marked all of the items will be printed, e-mailed, or saved.

PRINTING ERIC CITATIONS

Click on Print at the top of the screen.

A Print Manager screen appears.

Select the desired options.

Click on Estimate number of pages if you wish to determine the number of pages that will be printed before the printing begins.

E-MAILING ERIC CITATIONS

Click on E-mail at the top of the screen.

An E-Mail Manager screen appears.

Select the desired options.

SAVING ERIC CITATIONS

Click on Save at the top of the screen.

A Save Manager screen appears.

Select the desired options.

PRINTING AND SAVING FULL-TEXT ERIC DOCUMENTS
After retrieving the full text of the document, use the EDRS toolbar to print or save the full text. Do not use the browser’s toolbar.

PRINTING, SAVING AND E-MAILING FULL-TEXT JOURNAL ARTICLES
After retrieving the full text of the journal article, select Print, Save or E-mail at the top of the page. A “Manager” page appears. Make the appropriate selections. Use the browsers toolbar to print, e-mail or save. Some of the journal articles may have a format note: PDF Full Text. Clicking on that note will retrieve a version of the document that includes images.

TO QUIT ERIC
Click on the Indiana University Libraries link on the top right side of the screen to return to the Search IUCAT/Databases.

SEARCH TIPS
Use Boolean operators (and, or, not) and the search history on the Advanced Search screen to combine search terms.

LIMITS
Use limits whenever possible to narrow the search.

Full Text
Select to limit results to only ERIC Digests. The results will not include full text journal articles or most of the ERIC documents.

Magazine
Enter a magazine (journal) title to limit search results to articles in that magazine.

Date Published
Select a date or a date range to limit search results to specific dates.

Journal or Document
Select one to limit your search to either journal articles or ERIC documents.

FIELD CODES
Use field codes to customize your searches.

Author
To search for an author enter au and the author’s last name followed by the author’s first initial or name. Use more than one variation of the author’s name to conduct a complete search.

au bennett j
Limits to records with Bennett J in the author field.

au bennett john
Limits to records written by John Bennett.

au bennett l or au bennett john
Limits to records written by J Bennett or John Bennett.

Title
To search for a word in the title enter ti before the phrase to be searched.
ti charter schools
Limits to records with only charter schools in the title field.

Subject
To search an official ERIC descriptor, enter de before the term.
de academic ability

An online thesaurus is available. Use it to select and search official ERIC descriptors (see Using the ERIC Online Thesaurus).

Using the ERIC Online Thesaurus

Use the Thesaurus to limit your search to official ERIC descriptors used to describe the subject of the document/journal article.

Click on Thesaurus Search on the toolbar.

Enter a term and click on the Browse button.

Click on any valid search term to see an explanation of that term.

Click on the box to the left of the term to select it to be searched.

Click on the Search button to initiate the search.
Important:

Do not select a term that is not highlighted, it is not a valid term. To select the term that is labeled Use: click on that term.

More than one subject may be selected from the Thesaurus. The Boolean search term “or” is the default (or will broaden a search). Change to “and” to narrow the search.

How to Find Items Identified in ERIC

There are two types of ERIC records: ERIC journals (EJ) and ERIC documents (ED). The ERIC number appears on the title list after the citation. On the detailed view, the ERIC number appears in a field labeled ERIC #.

Journal articles may be available in full-text. If this message appears on the record the article will be available online: Linked full text. Search IUCAT for availability. If the message doesn’t appear it will be necessary to check IUCAT for availability.

All available ERIC documents are on microfiche in the Education Library. If this message appears on the record the document may also be available online: Full Text from EDRS. Not all documents are available in microfiche or online. Only documents that have copyright releases are available in microfiche and only documents dated 1993-present and have copyright releases are available online.

Written by: Gwen Pershing
Other Instructional Publications are available at:
http://www.indiana.edu/~libugls/Publications/handouts.html

Last Updated February 2003
URL:http://www.indiana.edu/~libugls/Publications/eric.html
Please send comments to: libinstr@indiana.edu
Copyright 1998-2001, The Trustees of Indiana University