Searching ERICSome quick tips for effectively searching ERIC for educational research.

Laura A. EwaldAssistant Librarian in Public Services

Ruby E. Dare LibraryGreenville College

January 2010

Why ERIC??? ERIC (The Educational Resource and Information Center) provides unlimited access to more than 1.3 million records of journal articles and other education-related materials, with hundreds of new records added multiple times per week.

In addition to the journal literature, ERIC indexes education-related materials from a variety of sources, including scholarly organizations, professional associations, research centers, policy organizations, university presses, the U.S. Department of Education and other federal agencies, and state and local agencies. Individual contributors submit conference papers, research papers, dissertations, and theses.

While ERIC is no longer run by the Federal Government, the database is still housed at the Department of Education at http://www.eric.ed.gov/.

ERIC Tips

Keys to Using ERIC

• Use the Advanced Search option.

• Look for limiters, esp…– Journal Articles (EJ) vs. Documents (EJ)– Date– Publication Type

• The EBSCO version is recommended as having the most search and full text options, so as long as you are enrolled at Greenville College, you should use it!

ERIC Tips

From the GC Library Web Pagehttp://www.greenville.edu/library/

Select the “Find Articles”

link.

ERIC Tips

The Find Articles Page

Select EBSCO Databases

ERIC Tips

The Library’s online resources are proprietary, subscription services and require an authorized ID to login.

As a GC student, your access login is your 14-digit GC student ID number (24511XXXXXXXXX).

Logging in to GC Databases

ERIC Tips

The EBSCO Page

Select ERIC

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The EBSCOhost interface (your BEST choice!)

Add as many search lines as needed.

Select “Journal Articles” in both.Use this option to

select education levels. Tip: Holding the CTRL key down allows you to select multiple levels.

Set year range.

ERIC Tips

Use “ “ to search on phrases.

Full text in EBSCO databases

Full text Full text available in available in

this this databasedatabase

Check Check availability in availability in

other other databases, GC databases, GC

Catalog or Catalog or order via ILLorder via ILL

ERIC Tips

Inter Library Loan There are 2 ways to order materials

via InterLibrary Loan Click the “Check for more full text

options” link within any database record to check for other full text options and access the ILL form

E-mail the record directly from any database to libill@greenville.edu

ERIC Tips

Check for full-text options & access the G.C. ILL form.

E-mail record to libill@greenville.edu

ILL Options in EBSCOHost

But first!

ERIC Tips

Clicking on the

takes you to one of these two screens.

Article available in another GC database.

Article must be requested via InterLibrary Loan.

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Document Delivery Service

Fill in these five lines and click “Send Request” to complete your request.

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Getting InterLibrary Loan articles (ILL) on time

“Needed by” dates.... All ILL requests are processed ASAP. PLAN AHEAD --- two-week’s notice.***

*** IMPORTANT!! Some articles come within hours of our ordering them, and some take weeks. We can’t know ahead

of time how quick the turnaround will be, but we will try to get them to you as quickly as possible.

ERIC Tips

If it is available in Full Text, Print it out! If it is not available in Full Text, click the

link to Check for other full text options.

If it is not available in Full Text anywhere, use the online ILL form or e-mail the item record to the LIBILL e-mail account Include your name & status in the subject line or

text of your message libill@greenville.edu

Write down or print out relevant citation information for your own records (author, title, date, periodical title, pages, and database or index used).

When you find something...

ERIC Tips

Checklist for searching ERIC: For best results, use the EBSCO version; For the best scholarly resources, search on

Journal Articles not Documents; Limit your Publication Type to “Journals

Articles,” too. Save a search line by selecting your

“Educational Level.” Use the CTRL key to select multiple levels such as both “Primary Education” and “Elementary Education.”

Limit by date using a year range.ERIC Tips

E-mail us at:libill@greenville.eduorlibref@greenville.edu

If you have any questions...

For assistance logging in to a database, call 618-664-6599

ERIC Tips