ERIC News

A quick update on the ERIC database and its contents

ERIC wants to digitize your ERIC document. If you authored an ERIC document published prior to 1992 and would like to make it available in electronic format, go to the ERIC Microfiche Digitization Project page and provide your contact information to ERIC. The ERIC Microfiche Digitization Project has already digitized 63,000 ERIC documents from 1988-1992.

There is a lack of coverage, affectionately referred to as "The Gap", which stems from the ERIC contractual turnover from the Clearinghouses. The Gap refers to the time period 2002-2003, when very few journal citations were added to the ERIC database. ERIC is reviewing and developing an approach to correcting The Gap. However, if you are searching for current research on your topic, I recommend that you also search the database, Education Abstracts, to make sure you have not missed important current published research on your topic.

The eric.ed.gov (free web version of ERIC) continues to improve. You can now create your own account, save records to a "clipboard", and export saved records in EndNote compatible format.

As a result of the ERIC restructuring, all publishers are required to sign a journal agreement with ERIC in order to have their publications indexed in ERIC. There are currently 600 titles indexed in ERIC. This is approximately 75% of the number of titles indexed in ERIC prior to the change in 2002.

Wiley, publisher of journals such as Journal of Research in Science Teaching has not been responding to ERIC's request to sign a journal agreement. If you attend a conference where Wiley is exhibiting, please encourage them to sign the agreement with ERIC.

If you would like to suggest a periodical title for indexing to ERIC, please contact them directly . They want to hear your suggestions!

New Report Available: Closing the Expectations Gap 2007

Achieve, Inc. recently released their report Closing the Expectations Gap 2007
reviewing the alignment of the high school standards, graduation requirements and assessments of 50 states with college and work requirements. It finds that at least 48 states are now actively engaged in reform efforts of some kind.

Achieve, Inc. was created by the nation's governors and business leaders in 1996. It is described as a "bipartisan, non-profit organization that helps states raise academic standards, improve assessments and strengthen accountability to prepare all young people for postsecondary education, work and citizenship". Michigan's Governor Jennifer Granholm sits on Achieve, Inc.'s Board of Directors.

Do U IM?

Do you use AIM/AOL's Instant Messaging service (or do your students?) If yes, you can now ASK-A-LIBRARIAN using your own IM account. Add waynelibrarian to your buddy list.

If you don't use IM, you and your students can still chat with a librarian online using our chat software, no IM account or special software required. Just go to our ASK-A-LIBRARIAN page to link up with us.

JSTOR survey says Most Research Begins Online

According to Michael Spinella, executive director of JSTOR (an online database provider), online search is now the usual starting point among education faculty.

At the AERA Scholarly Communication session, he reported that a recent JSTOR survey revealed that only about 3% of faculty begin research in the library building. About 25% start with a general search on the web via Google or Yahoo; about 28% use a library’s online catalog, and about 38% start with a specific electronic resource like a computer database. (originally posted in the EducationPR blog)

Beta Data Analysis System from NCES

The DAS Online 2.0 Beta includes many new features and functions including estimating covariance analyses--both Weighted Least Squares and Logistic regressions. A Winsor filter has been added to filter out cases with extreme values. (NCES Newsflash Service)

You can also access several completed tables focusing on postsecondary education data

New Study Released on Effectiveness of Reading and Mathematics Software

"The National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, in the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, has released a major study of the effectiveness of education technology. The report, ‘Effectiveness of Reading and Mathematics Software Products: Findings from the First Student Cohort’ which was mandated by Congress, uses scientifically based research methods and control groups to focus on the impact of technology on student academic achievement."

The report is available at: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20074005
(IES Newsflash Service)

Niles Eldredge creating a new journal called Outreach and Education in Evolution

From the Chronicle of Higher Education 3/2/2007
The new journal is designed to bring advances in the subject into classrooms from kindergarten to graduate school...the journal's target audience encompasse(s) a variety of categories, including administrators, advanced undergraduates and graduate students, educated laypeople, museum curators, policy makers, researchers, and schoolteachers of all grades. Springer had planned to publish the first issue in January 2008. But when it announced the journal last month, potential contributors expressed so much interest that Springer decided to push the first issue up to September."

Inspector General's Report Cites Apparent Conflicts of Interest at Universities Involved in Reading First Program

From the Chronicle of Higher Education 3/9/2007

"The Education Department's inspector general released late Wednesday its sixth, and probably final, report on problems in the administration of the Reading First program. More than any of the previous reports, this one touches on allegations of conflicts of interest at the universities that have helped run the program...Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Senate committee that oversees education programs, has demanded to see correspondence between the department and its Reading First contractors. "

An Historical Overview of Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education, by State: Fiscal Years 1990−2002

NCES announces the release of An Historical Overview of Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education, by State: Fiscal Years 1990−2002

"This large publication contains data from the Common Core of Data, National Public Education Financial Survey, Fiscal Years 1990 through 2002. Data have been adjusted to 2002 dollars using the Consumer Price Index. Full dollar amounts and per pupil amounts are presented for each data item."

This publication contains state-level data on revenues by source and expenditures by function, including expenditures per pupil. All data were reported to NCES by state education agencies."

To download, view and print the publication as a PDF file, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2007317

Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries

From the UNICEF Innocenti Research Center in Italy, this Report Card released February 14, 2007, "provides a comprehensive assessment of the lives and well-being of children and young people in 21 nations of the industrialized world. Its purpose is to encourage monitoring, to permit comparison, and to stimulate the discussion and development of policies to improve children’s lives."

Full Text SAGE Journals now available!!

As of January 2007, in partnership with the Michigan Librarian Consortium, WSU now provides access to over 400 Sage Journals across 40 disciplines, through the Sage Collections Plus E-Journals. You can read more about the collection http://www.mlc.lib.mi.us/cms/sitem.cfm/databases__econtent/ejournals_/sage_ejournals/

To access the full-text SAGE Education journal collection, click on the letter C under Articles & Databases on the library homepage, select the CSA Illumnia Databases link.

When you get to the database page, click the Specific Databases link.
Scroll down and select Education: A SAGE Full-Text collection
(While you are here, you can click the BROWSE FULL TEXT link to the right to view the titles in this collection, and directly link to a title)
Scroll up to the top and select the CONTINUE TO SEARCH link to search the collection.

You can also link directly to the full text articles in these publications from any database by using the Article Linker button.

Have questions about the SAGE full-text collection, or any other library resources? Please give me a call!

New Online SAGE Journal Collection Available

WSU, through the Michigan Library Consortium (MLC), now has full-text online access to 10 discipline-specific SAGE journal collections. Included are SAGE’s Psychology and Education journals.

A full title list is available here: http://www.sagepublications.com/promos/MLC_titles.pdf

You can access the SAGE online collections through the CSA Illumina database platform.
From the library homepage, click the letter “C” under Articles & Databases
Click CSA Illumina in the list.
When you get to CSA Illumina, click the specific databases link
Select the full-text collection you would like to search.

Announcement from the Michigan Library Consortium http://www.mlc.lib.mi.us/cms/sitem.cfm/news__announcements/sage/

New Field Name for searching research in ERIC

For those of you who may have used the search term research and RECORD TYPE as the search type to search for research in the ERIC (FirstSearch) database, the RECORD TYPE field has been removed from ERIC. The field name is now PUBLICATION TYPE.

To search for research articles in ERIC (FirstSearch), use research as your search term, and select PUBLICATION TYPE as your search type.

New Peer Reviewed Search Limit in ERIC

In the ERIC FirstSearch database you can now limit your search to Peer Reviewed journals.


However, ERIC is not retroactively applying the Peer Reviewed field to all citations in its database, so if you use the Peer Reviewed limit, you will only be retrieving materials published after November 2004.

Peer Review is being applied according to the Refereed designations applied in Ulrich’s International Periodicals Directory. Although considered an authoritative source on information on periodicals published throughout the world, it is important to remember that Peer Review status is self-reported by the publishers.

Note that if you do not limit your search to Articles while performing a Peer Reviewed limited search, you will get ERIC Documents in your search results. ERIC is also applying the Peer Review designation to ERIC Documents published by NCES and the What Works Clearinghouse after 2004.

Quality Counts 2007: From Cradle to Career: Connecting American Education From Birth to Adulthood

Education Week has released its annual Quality Counts report. This years report "begins to track state efforts to create a more seamless education system by looking at performance across the various sectors, and at state efforts to define students’ “readiness” to succeed from one stage to the next." The report contains a "Chance-for-Success Index, developed by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, which provides a state-focused perspective on the importance of education throughout a person’s lifetime."

Michigan ranks 25th on the Chance for Success Index.

Happy New Year!

Hello and Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a good (and restful) break. I'll have lots of news to share for the coming semester, including changes to ERIC and library resources available through the Blackboard Content System.

Journal of Educational Controversy

This new peer-refereed journal will be published semiannually by the Center for Educational Pluralism of the Woodring College of Education at Western Washington University. The journal publishes primarily original essays in response to the dilemma or controversy announced in the theme for the issue. The first issue was published in November.

"The Journal of Educational Controversy raises controversies that result from teaching and learning in a pluralistic, democratic society."

2 new books available from RAND

The following new books are available online from RAND. You can access these publications online through the RAND website, or through the WSU Library Catalog.

Reforming Teacher Education: Something Old, Something New by Sheila Nataraj Kirby et al.

Teacher education has been subject to scathing criticism and innumerable efforts designed to reform it or to save it from being dismantled. One of the latest and best-funded efforts aimed at teacher education reform is boldly titled Teachers for a New Era (TNE). Eleven colleges and universities nationwide were selected to participate in TNE. The RAND Corporation and the Manpower Research Demonstration Corporation followed and evaluated the TNE initiative from 2002 to 2005, conducting on-site interviews with TNE grantees. This study places TNE in the larger context of teacher education reform and critically examines the process by which reform will result in highly qualified teachers capable of producing improvements in student learning.

Improving Mathematics and Science Education: A Longitudinal Investigation of the Relationship Between Reform-Oriented Instruction and Student Achievement by Vi-Nhuan Le et al.

This book presents the findings of a multiyear study of the effectiveness of reform-oriented science and mathematics instruction. This project builds on prior RAND research, incorporating diverse indicators, innovative measures, and a longer-term period of study.

What It Takes to Make a Student

The November 26 New York Times Sunday Magazine reports on recent research the effects of poverty on student achievement, and aligns these findings with the impact of No Child Left Behind on closing the minority achievement gap. (You may need to create a free account with the NYT to access this article).

PISA: Program for International Student Assessment

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an assessment (begun in 2000) that focuses on 15-year-olds' capabilities in reading literacy, mathematics literacy, and science literacy. Access PISA data and link to reports compiled by NCES from PISA data.

Data Snapshot from PISA 2003 Assessment:
Average Problem Solving Literacy Score
U.S.:477
OECD average: 500