The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) is an online

digital library A digital library (also called an online library, an internet library, a digital repository, a library without walls, or a digital collection) is an online database of digital resources that can include text, still images, audio, video, digital ...

of education research and information. ERIC is sponsored by the

Institute of Education Sciences The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is the independent, non-partisan statistics, research, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education. IES' stated mission is to provide scientific evidence on which to ground education practic ...

of the

United States Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a cabinet-level department of the United States government, originating in 1980. The department began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and ...

Description

The mission of ERIC is to provide a comprehensive, easy-to-use, searchable, Internet-based bibliographic and full-text database of education research and information for educators, researchers, and the general public. Education research and information are essential to improving teaching, learning, and educational decision-making. ERIC provides access to 1.5 million bibliographic records (

citation A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose o ...

abstracts An abstract is a brief summary of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding, or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose. When used, an abstract always ...

, and other pertinent data) of journal articles and other education-related materials, with hundreds of new records added every week. A key component of ERIC is its collection of

grey literature Grey literature (or gray literature) is material and research produced by organizations outside of the traditional publishing, commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels. Common grey literature publication types include reports (a ...

in education, which is largely available in full text in

Adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

PDF format Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating system ...

. Approximately one quarter of the complete ERIC Collection is available in full text. Materials with no full text available (primarily journal articles) can often be accessed using links to publisher websites and/or library holdings. ERIC usually includes education related articles in its database. Sample articles include "The Economic, Social and Administrative Pharmacy (ESAP) Discipline in US Schools and Colleges of Pharmacy", "Aesthetics in Young Children's Lives: From Music Technology Curriculum Perspective", and "Digital Game's Impacts on Students' Learning Effectiveness of Correct Medication". The ERIC Collection, begun in 1966, contains records for a variety of publication types, including: *journal articles *books *research syntheses *conference papers *technical reports *dissertations *policy papers, and *other education-related materials ERIC provides the public with a centralized Web site for searching the ERIC collection and submitting materials to be considered for inclusion in the collection. Users can also access the collection through commercial database vendors, statewide and institutional networks, and Internet search engines. To help users find the information they are seeking, ERIC produces a

controlled vocabulary A controlled vocabulary provides a way to organize knowledge for subsequent retrieval. Controlled vocabularies are used in subject indexing schemes, subject headings, thesauri, taxonomies and other knowledge organization systems. Controlled v ...

, the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors. This is a carefully selected list of education-related words and phrases used to tag materials by subject and make them easier to retrieve through a search. Prior to January 2004, the ERIC network consisted of sixteen subject-specific clearinghouses, various adjunct and affiliate clearinghouses, and three support components. The program was consolidated into a single entity, with upgraded systems, and paper-based processes converted to electronic, thus streamlining operations and speeding delivery of content. In March 2025 it was announced that the number of sources catalogued by ERIC was to be reduced by 45%.

References

External links

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ERIC Digests
, a repository for materials produced by the former ERIC Clearinghouse system up to 2003 {{authority control Educational research Educational materials United States Department of Education Government-owned websites of the United States Government databases in the United States Public domain databases Bibliographic databases and indexes Full-text scholarly online databases American digital libraries Discipline-oriented digital libraries Aggregation-based digital libraries

Description

See also

References

External links