Transcript Using FirstSearch Databases

Using the ERIC Database
This tutorial will show you how to access ERIC
which contains citations, abstracts and some
full-text materials from journals and other
materials related to the field of education.
You will also learn how to construct effective
searches for empirical research articles in
scholarly journals and how to access materials.
May 1, 2006
What is ERIC?

The world’s largest source of education information
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Provides citations and abstracts of education journal and
magazine articles AND unique ERIC Documents
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Our version is restricted access to WSU affiliates only (Students,
Faculty and Staff)
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Is NOT a full-text database
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Has links to check for full-text in other online library resources
through
(Article Linker)
Locate the ERIC Database
1.
Go to the WSU Library
System Home Page
www.lib.wayne.edu
2.
Click on the letter E under
Articles & Databases
3.
Click on ERIC
(FirstSearch) in the
database list that comes
up
The ERIC (CSA) database contains
the same citations, but has less fulltext article links.
ERIC Advanced Search Screen
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Multiple Search Types
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Limit Date Ranges
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Limit Document Type

Limit to WSU Subscriptions
Forming Your Search in ERIC
My general topic of interest is effective use of
instructional design in distance education.
Let’s view this topic, but extract its most
important components.
This is how we begin to identify the keywords
we will use in our search.
Forming Your Search in ERIC
effective use of instructional design
in distance education
instructional design
ADDIE
distance education
e-learning
distance learning
instructional systems
Building an Advanced Search in ERIC
Now let’s enter our
search terms.
instructional design
distance education
Building an Advanced Search in ERIC
How successful was the search?

Note the number of
citations returned-too
few or too many?
(this search produced almost
1,500 results)
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
Look at the titles—are
they relevant to your
topic?
Can the search be
constructed better?
Building an Advanced Search in ERIC
Special Commands
Proximity Searching
Use w between two words that you want
found together as a phrase:
instructional w design
Building an Advanced Search in ERIC
Special Commands
Let’s use what we
just learned
narrow our search
Add w to our search
terms, so it will look for
each of them as a
phrase.
Building an Advanced Search in ERIC
Special Commands
What’s changed?
Reduced
the number of
citations.
of the w made results
more relevant
Use
How can we increase the
relevancy of search results?
Building an Advanced Search in ERIC
Using Descriptors

Click on an article title,
then scroll down on
the page to the
DESCRIPTORS area

Consistent terms used
to describe concepts

Searching a descriptor
searches only this
area of the record
Building an Advanced Search in ERIC
Using Descriptors
Type in the
DESCRIPTOR exactly as
you saw it in the full
citation
Select DESCRIPTORS
PHRASE from the dropdown menu
(If the DESCRIPTOR
term has only one word,
then you would select
DESCRIPTOR. Use
DESCRIPTOR PHRASE
when the DESCRIPTOR
has more than one word
in it)
Building an Advanced Search in ERIC
Using Descriptors
We have reduced our search results to those citations that have both “instructional design”
and “distance education” as DESCRIPTORS.
We now have less than 1,000 results.
But we can narrow our results even more
Building an Advanced Search in ERIC
Special Command and Limits
This search includes ERIC Documents
and general articles, not just research.
What if we just want to limit our search to
research articles from journals?
Building an Advanced Search in ERIC
Special Commands and Limits
Special Commands – ERIC
 Enter Research as your search term, and
choose Record Type from the drop-down
menu to the right of the search term box,
and ERIC will return only Research Reports
(This works only in ERIC)
 Select Journal from the Document Type
drop-down menu to limit your search to
journal articles only
Building an Advanced Search in ERIC
Special Commands
Let’s narrow our search
one more time

Add research as a search term,
and select RECORD TYPE as the
search type from the drop down
menu.

Select JOURNAL from the
Document Type drop-down menu

Click in the
to limit your search to journals in
the WSU libraries (online and
print)
Building an Advanced Search in ERIC
Special Commands and Limits
Let’s look at our search results:
We went from over 900 to 36 citations in our search results.
Each one is a research article that relates specifically to the topic.
Analyzing Search Results in ERIC
Journal Citation (With Full-Text Link)
Click in
this box
to mark
the
citation
for group
printing
Title of Article
Source gives the Journal Information. This
tells you the name of the journal that
published the article
Accession No. begins with EJ. This
indicates it is a journal article
citation. Do not write down the EJ
number. You cannot retrieve Journal
Articles using an EJ number
Direct links to
the full-text of
the article.
PDF is best
choice for
printing
Analyzing Search Results in ERIC
WARNING ABOUT FULL-TEXT!
ERIC is not a full-text database.
Do not limit your searches to full-text in ERIC
ALL JOURNALS AND ALL JOURNAL ARTICLES ARE NOT
AVAILABLE ONLINE IN FULL-TEXT.
You will be able to link to articles available online through WSU by
selecting the ARTICLE TITLE, then selecting
Advanced Searching in ERIC
REVIEW





ERIC contains citations for two types of items: journal
articles and ERIC documents.
ERIC Documents are NOT journal articles.
You can limit your search to journal articles in ERIC
by selecting JOURNAL from the Document Type dropdown menu.
Use the terms in the DESCRIPTOR area of the full
citation to narrow your search and to identify
additional search terms.
ERIC is not a full-text database, but some articles
have full-text links. If there is not a full-text link, click
the article title and click on the
to access
the full-text (if available).