ERIC (1966- )

Database Description
Fields in This Database: Authors and Organizations · Titles · Subjects · Abstract · Issue Numbering · Codes

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Database Description: The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) indexes education-related literature, beginning in 1966. The ERIC database is the world’s largest source of education information, containing abstracts of documents and journal articles on education research and practice. The database covers descriptions and evaluations of programs, research reports and surveys, curriculum and teaching guides, instructional materials, position papers, and resource materials. In 1993, ERIC began indexing education-related books, including the output of major publishers.

Journal list.

PRODUCED BY: Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), a program of the U.S. Department of Education.
DATES COVERED: From 1966.
UPDATES: Monthly.

Fields in This Database

AUTHORS AND ORGANIZATIONS

AUTHOR (.AU.): Personal author, compiler, or editor. Names are given last name first, using the name as it appears in the source publication. If you are unsure how the name is given, begin searching by surname only. Examples:

Smitherman, Geneva
Smitherman-Donaldson, Geneva
Lopez, Antonio M.
Lopez, Antonio M. Jr.

INSTITUTION (.CO.): Names of authoring organizations, e.g., a research foundation, government agency, school district, or university responsible for the intellectual content of the document.

SPONSORING AGENCY (.SP.): Agency, organization, or institution that sponsored the work described in the publication.

AVAILABILITY (.AV.): For publications that are not available through ERIC, this field contains the name and address of the publisher or other source.

TITLES

SUBJECTS

DESCRIPTOR (.SU.): Descriptor, or subject heading, assigned from the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors. With the SU qualifier, you may search either subject keywords or subject phrases. SU encompasses both major and minor descriptors. Major descriptors are subject headings which describe an important topic or central focus of the article or document. In the ERIC record display, major descriptors are preceded by an asterisk *. Minor descriptors are subject headings which describe a concept addressed in the article or document, but not a primary or central focus. In the ERIC record display, minor descriptors are not asterisked.

MAJOR DESCRIPTOR (.MAJ.): Major descriptor (subject heading) which describes an important topic or central focus of the article or document. Using MAJ, you may search either complete phrases or individual words from major descriptors.

IDENTIFIER (.ID.): Non-controlled vocabulary used to the describe the content of the article or document. Terms in this field are not taken from the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors. These terms include new words or phrases that may be in popular use but are not in the official Thesaurus. Identifiers also may be geographic names, laws and legislation, and tests and measurements.

Additional subject fields are defined in the ERIC database, but are intended for system use. People are unlikely to use these fields for searching:

SUBJECT THESAURUS (.SUT.): This field is defined for system use when retrieving subjects through the thesaurus.

MAJOR DESCRIPTOR (.MAJT.): This field is defined for system use when retrieving records through "focus" in the thesaurus.

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT (.AB.): Omit stopwords when searching AB.

ISSUE NUMBERING

YEAR (.YR.): Year of publication of the article or document.

MONTH (.MO.): Month or season of publication of the article or document. Month is usually given as a 3-letter code (Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec). Seasons are usually given as Win, Spr, Sum, Fall.

NUMBER (.NO.): Number of the issue in which the article appeared.

VOLUME (.VO.): Volume of the journal in which the article appeared.

ARTICLE PAGINATION (.PGAT.): If you remember the starting page of an article but not the full citation, searching with PGAT might be useful. Enter the starting page and the truncation symbol $.

CODES

ERIC ACCESSION NUMBER (.AN.): Record control number assigned by database producer; unique to each record in the database. Searching by AN is a method for returning directly to a record that you have retrieved previously.

PUBLICATION TYPE (.AT.): Phrase describing the type of material. To search, use unique, significant words, or else include all the words of the publication type.

ERIC began using Publication Types for ERIC documents in 1974 and for journal articles in 1979. Many earlier records do not carry a Publication Type, although some do. This means that if you limit a search by AT, your results are, in general, limited to mid-1970's and later. To find all journal articles on a topic in ERIC, regardless of date, limit your search to ED.JO. (Source = EJ) instead of Publication Type.

Book/Products Reviews
Books
Collected Works - General
Collected Works - Proceedings
Collected Works - Serials
Computer Programs
Creative Works
Dissertations/Theses
Dissertations/Theses - Doctoral Dissertations
Dissertations/Theses - Masters Theses
Dissertations/Theses - Practicum Papers
ERIC Digests in Full Text
ERIC Publications
Guides - Classroom - Learner
Guides - Classroom - Teacher
Guides - General
Guides - Non-Classroom
Historical Materials
Information Analyses
Journal Articles (1979-)
Legal/Legislative/Regulatory Materials
Machine-Readable Data Files
Multilingual/Bilingual Materials
Non-Print Media
Numerical/Quantitative Data
Opinion Papers
Reference Materials - Bibliographies
Reference Materials - Directories/Catalogs
Reference Materials - General
Reference Materials - Geographic
Reference Materials - Vocabularies/Classifications
Reports - Descriptive
Reports - Evaluative
Reports - General
Reports - Research
Speeches/Meeting Papers
Tests/Questionnaires
Translations

TARGET AUDIENCE (.AUD.): ERIC documents are sometimes written for particular audiences. ERIC identifies the audience when the author clearly specifies an intended audience. Many document records do not include a target audience.

Administrators
Community
Counselors
Media Staff
Parents
Policymakers
Practitioners
Researchers
Students
Support Staff
Teachers

CONTRACT/GRANT NUMBER (.CG.): Contract or grant number for a sponsored project, when applicable.

EDUCATIONAL LEVEL (.EDLV.): Specifies the level of education that is addressed in the document or article. See definitions.

Early Childhood Education
– Preschool Education
– Primary Education
Elementary Secondary Education
– Elementary Education
– – Adult Basic Education
– – Intermediate Grades
– Middle Schools
– Secondary Education
– – Junior High Schools
– – High Schools
– – High School Equivalency Program
Postsecondary Education
– Higher Education
– Two Year Colleges
– Adult Education

ISSN (.IS.): International Standard Serial Number, a unique numeric identifier assigned to the serial or journal..

ISBN (.ISBN.): International Standard Book Number of the book. In general, only commercially published books carry ISBN's.

LANGUAGE (.LA.): The ERIC database includes articles and documents in more than 100 languages. To search for a particular language or to limit your search to a language, use the language name spelled out.

PEER REVIEWED (.PEER.): Code indicating whether the article comes from a journal that is peer-reviewed. Articles from 2005 on carry this code.

T = true (i.e. peer reviewed)
F = false (i.e. not peer reviewed)

REPORT NUMBER (.RNUM.)

SOURCE (.SO.): You can limit your search to either journal articles or documents (reports, papers, guides, and books).

ej = Journal Article
ed = Document

November 2007

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