ERIC, the Education Resources Information Center, is an internet-based digital library of education research and information sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. ERIC provides access to over a million bibliographic records of journal and non-journal (conference papers, educational agency reports, technical reports, etc.) literature indexed from 1966 to the present. ERIC also contains a growing collection of full-text materials in Adobe PDF format, including reports related to human resource education.
ERIC is available through a number of different Web sources and database providers, including the free government version at http://www.eric.ed.gov/ We recommend that you choose the version available through CSA, but if you choose another version, always select the Advanced Search feature.
(Video: Searching ERIC | Video: Viewing Results | Video: Other Search Options)
1. Begin at the Online Research Resources page ( http://www.library.uiuc.edu/orr/) and type in ERIC.
Suggestion: open a new browser window and resize it so you can have this page open as
you try out the steps in the new page.
2. Select Cambridge Scientific Abstracts
3. Click on Advanced Search, and examine some of the options in the pull-down menus, such as Keywords (KW), Author (AU), Title (TI), Abstract (AB), Descriptor (DE)*, Publication Type (PT), and others.
4. Type in Terms (one subject term per box). Choose descriptor in the drop down menu to search for terms as a main subject of the article. You may need to look at the thesaurus Under Search Tools) to find these terms. Searching these terms as keywords will provide more results, but perhaps not as focused.
From the Search Page (or at the bottom of the results page) view the other ERIC Indexes and Limits Available such as:
a. Author, Journal Name, Publication Type
b. Education Level
c. Target Audience
It is also possible to return to the Advanced Search Page and enter additional terms.
1. From the results page notice the tabs pertaining to the type of publications available to view.
2. Note the descriptor terms on the right.
3. Click on the title of a record to read the abstract (summary), and additional information. Make note of terms that you may want to re-enter into your search.
To see the results of a search, click on "Display" in the right of the Search History box. This will automatically display brief results. The display options listed within the brief results are outlined with explanations below:View Record - Offers a detailed complete record with an abstract, includes a listing of the subject headings, and cited references. NOTE: Inclusion of references is recent in ERIC, and limited at this time.
Learn how to create search sets and combine them. This allows flexibility in searching. From Search Tools select the search sets to combine together.
1. Full text linking - these items are linked from within the database and may be scanned pdf files of microfilm.
2. EJ accession numbers. The journal citations are identified with an EJ and six digit identification number, such as EJ725825. These may be available online. Click on the Discover button for options.
3. ED accession numbers. Records that have accession numbers that begin with ED are documents. ERIC Documents represent conference presentations, curricular materials, grant project reports, government or educational agency reports or products, ERIC Digests, books, program descriptions, and more. ERIC Documents are marked with an ED and six digit number, such as ED481538. These may be available online (full text). Click on the Discover button for options. If not, they may be available on microfiche at the ESSL library.
ERIC Journal articles are typically cited in the same fashion as all journal citations.
Many other searching options and strategies are available and necessary at times, including the ability to limit your retrieval in various ways, customize your results display, mark, save, email or print the results, etc. In the ERIC database there is a help button image button that will lead you to tips on searching the database.
Contact the reference staff at the Education and Social Science Library via our Ask-A-Librarian service or in-person for additional assistance.
Take the ERIC Quiz here.
University LibraryFor comments on this page contact: Digital Learning Librarian
Last modified by: Lori Mestre on 12/1/09