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Volume 8 Number 44 |
August 27, 2000 |
ISSN 1068-2341 |
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Editor: Gene V Glass, College of Education Arizona State University
Copyright 2000, the
EDUCATION POLICY ANALYSIS ARCHIVES. Articles appearing in EPAA are abstracted in the Current Index to Journals in Education by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation and are permanently archived in Resources in Education. |
Information Needs in the
21st Century:
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Abstract Ubiquitous for 35 years, the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) is known for its database and recently for its range of web-based information services. I contend that federal policy with regard to ERIC must change and that ERIC will need massive restructuring in order to continue to meet the information needs of the education community. Five arguments are presented and justified: 1) ERIC is the most widely known and used educational resource of the US Department of Education, 2) senior OERI and Department of Education officials have consistently undervalued, neglected, and underfunded the project, 3) ERIC’s success is due largely to information analysis and dissemination activities beyond ERIC’s contracted scope, 4) information needs have changed dramatically in the past few years and ERIC cannot keep up with the demands given its current resources, and 5) the ERIC database itself needs to be examined and probably redesigned. |
IntroductionThe Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) has been the most visible source for education information since its inception in 1966. As a system of 16 clearinghouses and 3 support contractors, ERIC collects, abstracts, and indexes education materials for the ERIC database; responds to requests for information in subject specific areas; and produces special print and electronic publications on current research, programs, and practices. As we enter into the 21st century and the Information Age, the question to ask is: "Will ERIC be ready?" Taking a hard look at what ERIC has been and what ERIC is today relative to user information needs, I conclude that ERIC will need massive restructuring in order to continue to meet the information needs of the education community.I base my conclusion on five basic arguments 1. ERIC is the most widely known and used educational resource of the US Department of Education. 2. While ERIC staff, including Office of Educational Research and Improvement monitors, have long appreciated ERIC, senior OERI and Department of Education officials have consistently undervalued, neglected, and underfunded the project. 3. ERIC's success is due largely to information analysis and dissemination activities that go beyond ERIC's contracted scope. 4. Information needs have changed dramatically in the past few years and ERIC cannot keep up with the demands given its current resources. 5. The ERIC database itself needs to be examined and probably redesigned. In this article, I justify these arguments. In my summary, I look at the federal role in education and conclude that unless ERIC is restructured, the U.S. Department of Education will fragment the nation's already frail educational information infrastructure. Educational research and practice will lose because neither will be able to readily build on past findings. ERIC is the most widely known and used educational resource of the U.S. Department of EducationIn its early years, ERIC was primarily an archive of the education literature. Its main activity was the development of its databases, Resources in Education (RIE) and Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE). Its primary users were researchers; the primary mode of access was through expert intermediaries - typically, reference librarians.While these two databases continue to be a major cornerstone for all clearinghouses, the rapid advancements of information technology have prompted ERIC to evolve into a much more powerful and useful resource. With the explosive growth of the Internet and CD-ROM products, ERIC as a system is now widely recognized as the central source for educational information. ERIC's user base has also changed. The majority of ERIC users today are teachers and other education practitioners. The mode has also changed—most users access ERIC themselves. And the nature of ERIC's work has changed—we are now more heavily involved in providing direct user services for many different audiences. All clearinghouses are heavily involved in providing a strong value-added service, i.e., information adapted to local need. Today, ERIC Clearinghouses
ERIC has always been the leader in providing useful information to teachers and other educators.
These are major firsts for both information science and education. Each of these innovations and accomplishments enhanced the usefulness and availability of information for ERIC's end-users, i.e. teachers and practitioners as well as researchers and policymakers. That these results are appreciated is readily evident:
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Department of Education officials have consistently undervalued, neglected, and underfunded the ERIC program.This is a bold statement. It reflects 19 years of personal observation. I preface my remarks with a recognition that senior Department of Education officials arrive with large agendas and limited time. ERIC is a program that appears to be working and not causing problems. Hence it is a program that doesn't require much attention. However, ERIC has suffered both from efforts to politicize it and from benign neglect.One of the first OERI Assistant Secretaries formed an ERIC Recompetition Design Panel involving government and non-government representatives. Inserting politics rather than informed judgment, that Assistant Secretary then claimed that the panel advocated changes that were part of his agenda and that had nothing to do with the deliberations of the Design Panel. Historically, Assistant Secretaries and other senior U.S. Department of Education officers had so many misconceptions that the Director of the ERIC program authored a paper entitled "Myths and Realities about ERIC" (Stonehill, 1995). ERIC has received few invitations to participate in various OERI panels and advisory meetings. Until recently, the ERIC program office within OERI has been severely understaffed. For the past 10 years, the federal government has spent approximately $9 million yearly on ERIC. The funding goes to pay for the clearinghouses, a central processing facility, GPO printing of Resources in Education, and ACCESS ERIC which serves as a contact point for the ERIC system and produces many reports previously produced by the central processing facility. Most users think we have a much bigger budget. During ERIC's lifetime, federal support for education nearly quadrupled (Hoffman, 1995). In constant dollars, funding for ERIC, however, is now less than one-half what it was 20 years ago. In the last ERIC recompetition, Clearinghouses were each level funded while required to provide support for AskERIC and to devote $30,000 toward web development. Notably absent are funds for research and development. Until this year, the US Department of Education's Office for Educational Research and Improvement has spent zero dollars for study and systematic evaluation of its most visible project. In FY 2000, four papers were commissioned at $10,000 each. When one considers that ERIC has been level funded for 20 years and that virtually no money has been allocated for research and evaluation in support of the ERIC project, ERIC's accomplishments appear even more amazing. Credit goes to the ERIC Directors for being in tune with their content areas and to the ERIC program office for gently guiding ERIC without the benefit of hard data. However, the assumptions that have guided ERIC so well in the past, no longer hold. Information needs have changed dramatically and, more than ever, the ERIC program office needs to be guided by data rather than by intuition and to have the benefit of adequate resources to allocate. ERIC has always taken pride in its ability to leverage resources. The ERIC Document Reproduction Service, which prepares microfiche of ERIC documents and distributes paper and electronic copies on demand, is a no-cost-to-the-government contract. It is paid for by standing orders for ERIC microfiche, fees collected for on-demand papers and electronic copies, and more recently subscriptions to the on-line, on-demand file. Central processing and quality control for the Current Index to Journals in Education was handled by Oryx Press at no charge to the government in exchange for the right to print CIJE. The private sector disseminated the ERIC database by mounting it as part of electronic information services (e.g., Dialog, BRS) or CD-ROM. Again these activities occur at no cost to the government. Consistent with this minimal funding level, the scope of work for the individual clearinghouses has changed little over the past 30 years. Clearinghouses are charged with
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A final example of ERIC's apparent failure to be appreciated within the Department of Education has to do with the creation of an Internet presence. When it became clear that educators at all levels were expecting to see Federally produced documents on the Internet, OERI provided supplemental funding to its Regional Labs to post their materials. The Labs responded with wonderful web pages, great collections of useful material. The ERIC Clearinghouses did not get any of this supplemental funding. ERIC's web presence is mostly the result of dedicated professionals staying up late at night. The irony is that the Labs and Centers receive a great deal of funding to disseminate their own research, yet, as shown in Table 1, ERIC web sites have been much more effective. As the national education dissemination system (Mathtech, 1998a), ERIC is responsible for disseminating all quality material related to education and, even without sufficient funds, has been far more successful in serving the education community. I argue later that ERIC cannot maintain that level of service any longer. Part of the problem stems from the nature of the program. ERIC is best known for its archiving of educational materials. ERIC gathers the literature and prepares the microfiche. From one point of view, ERIC is a fairly uninteresting project. It doesn't provide research breakthroughs. It does not generate headlines. It does not provide political mileage. It is not known outside of education and information science. Further, it appears to do its job adequately at the current funding level. What senior Department of Education officials apparently have not appreciated is that, to be a quality archive, ERIC had to be a quality information center. ERIC has established formal relationships with every major organization that produces and consumes educational resources and information. To build these relationships, ERIC has to be an appreciated provider of information services.
ERIC's success is due
largely to many marginal
The success of ERIC is clearly
not due solely to its
efforts to gather papers and build a database. Rather,
ERIC's success is due, to a great extent, to its
value-added services. ERIC excels at identifying what will
be helpful to its clients, identifying what is relevant and
of high quality, and organizing and presenting information.
In other words, ERIC is successful because it blends
information science with subject matter expertise.
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The ERIC database itself needs to
be
The ERIC system has always
sought to be a comprehensive
database by including virtually everything that has been
written about education. The idea was that if the database
is comprehensive, then with the right search strategy, a
person could find everything that is important to them. With
constant level funding, however, the reality is that ERIC is
no longer comprehensive. Several education-related journals
are not routinely put into the database. Acquisition of
conference papers is often not aggressive. Many high
quality, state and federal reports do not get into the
database.
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Table 3 |
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On-line citations |
Reproduced documents |
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Demand |
Supply |
Ratio |
Demand |
Supply |
Ratio |
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Community |
0.7% |
0.5% |
1.49 |
1.6% |
0.7% |
2.43 |
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Practitioners |
50.2% |
18.3% |
2.75 |
43.2% |
18.9% |
2.29 |
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Counselors |
0.3% |
0.4% |
0.91 |
0.8% |
0.5% |
1.56 |
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Parents |
1.3% |
0.7% |
1.79 |
2.5% |
1.6% |
1.54 |
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Support Staff |
0.1% |
0.1% |
0.41 |
0.1% |
0.1% |
1.21 |
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Administrators |
3.2% |
3.8% |
0.84 |
4.4% |
3.9% |
1.13 |
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Researchers |
2.5% |
5.1% |
0.49 |
2.2% |
2.1% |
1.07 |
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Students |
1.3% |
1.6% |
0.81 |
2.9% |
2.7% |
1.06 |
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Teachers |
14.6% |
9.9% |
1.48 |
11.0% |
11.4% |
0.97 |
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Policymakers |
2.3% |
2.8% |
0.83 |
3.0% |
3.3% |
0.92 |
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p-ratios between .8 and 1.25 indicate that the percentages are practically equivalent. |
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Table
4
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On-line citations |
Reproduced documents |
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Demand |
Supply |
Ratio |
Demand |
Supply |
Ratio |
|
ERIC Product |
0.9% |
0.9% |
1.03 |
3.8% |
2.3% |
1.68 |
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Thesis |
0.6% |
0.3% |
2.27 |
1.4% |
0.8% |
1.65 |
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Review Literature |
9.5% |
7.5% |
1.26 |
10.5% |
6.4% |
1.64 |
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Dissertation |
0.4% |
0.3% |
1.29 |
0.9% |
0.6% |
1.42 |
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Research Report |
31.4% |
30.6% |
1.02 |
30.7% |
25.9% |
1.19 |
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Conference Paper |
9.5% |
12.6% |
0.76 |
31.7% |
28.5% |
1.11 |
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Practicum Paper |
0.5% |
0.4% |
1.50 |
1.3% |
1.2% |
1.09 |
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Position Paper |
14.4% |
19.1% |
0.75 |
9.5% |
9.7% |
0.98 |
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Test, Questionnaire |
2.1% |
2.7% |
0.75 |
6.0% |
6.4% |
0.93 |
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Evaluative Report |
11.4% |
8.6% |
1.33 |
10.0% |
11.5% |
0.87 |
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Project Description |
18.7% |
20.9% |
0.90 |
13.3% |
16.8% |
0.79 |
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Bibliography |
1.2% |
1.7% |
0.69 |
1.7% |
2.2% |
0.76 |
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Non-clssrm Material |
9.2% |
7.5% |
1.22 |
8.5% |
11.3% |
0.75 |
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General Report |
1.1% |
2.3% |
0.48 |
0.8% |
1.1% |
0.70 |
|
Teaching Guide |
8.9% |
9.2% |
0.97 |
5.8% |
8.7% |
0.67 |
|
Confer. Proceedings |
0.6% |
1.1% |
0.52 |
1.3% |
2.2% |
0.59 |
|
Historical Material |
0.5% |
1.2% |
0.38 |
0.5% |
1.0% |
0.53 |
|
Directory |
0.3% |
0.6% |
0.51 |
0.6% |
1.2% |
0.50 |
|
General Reference |
0.1% |
0.2% |
0.65 |
0.1% |
0.3% |
0.47 |
|
Legal Material |
0.6% |
1.3% |
0.45 |
0.7% |
1.7% |
0.40 |
|
Statistical Material |
1.0% |
2.2% |
0.47 |
1.8% |
4.6% |
0.40 |
|
Instructional Material |
0.5% |
1.5% |
0.36 |
0.8% |
2.1% |
0.39 |
|
Book |
4.2% |
2.1% |
2.05 |
1.7% |
8.0% |
0.21 |
|
Audiovisual Material |
0.1% |
0.1% |
0.53 |
0.0% |
0.3% |
0.09 |
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p-ratios between .8 and 1.25 indicate that the percentages are practically equivalent. |
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Based on this analysis, the most popular types of documents are those flagged as written for practitioners and teachers; demand for these types of documents exceeds the supply in the database. Documents written expressly for researchers are also in demand; however, there appears to be an adequate supply of such documents. There is very little demand, however, for historical materials, directories, general reference material, legal material, and audio-visual material. Of special interest is that there is very little demand for instructional material. Right now, patrons do not come to ERIC in search of materials to use in their classroom. Yet, a significant portion of documents are selected for inclusion in the database on the grounds that a teacher may find the materials useful. The data suggest that either ERIC markets the availability of these types of documents or puts much less effort into their acquisition. Another read of these data is that demand exceeds supply for comprehensive materials such as literature reviews, books, theses and dissertations as well as evaluative materials. One reviewer pointed out that ERIC needs a better policy with regard to books. One one hand, there are databases for books and one could flood the database with textbooks. On the other hand, books providing insights into policy issues and books summarizing scholarly research are sorely needed and are not adequately being identified by ERIC. I noted earlier that the scopes of work for the ERIC Clearinghouses have not changed significantly in the past 25 years. As shown in Table 5, this lack of change may be becoming problematic. Five clearinghouses are putting in significantly more documents than people seem to be demanding. Further, these clearinghouses supply about one-third of the documents in the ERIC database yet account for only one-fifth of the demand. This is not to say that the mix of documents in the ERIC database should be determined by demand, but rather the mix of clearinghouse activities needs to be periodically re-examined. The ERIC database is composed of a documents database, RIE, and a journal article database, CIJE. While the documents in RIE are not peer reviewed, the RIE database has many advantages. It serves as a pre-print service for many papers originally presented at conferences. It serves as an archive for on-line journals, such as Education Policy Analysis Archives. And it contains state and federally produced reports. Most importantly, ERIC can make most of these documents available, either though the microfiche collection, or on-line for documents submitted after 1994. Thus, people can search the RIE database and usually obtain the documents. The same is not true for CIJE. Patrons finding articles in CIJE need to go to an academic library, or if it is in one of a limited number of journals, order the document through a reprint service. Thus, CIJE presents additional work for the patron and there are alternatives. As mentioned earlier, OCLC, EBSCO, and the American Psychological Association provide on-line access to a growing number of journal articles. H.R. Wilson's Education Abstracts database covers many of the journals covered by CIJE. Perhaps, ERIC should drop CIJE in light of these other databases or perhaps index only those journals it can archive in RIE.
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Summary and ConclusionsERIC's value lies is its ability to make educational information relevant to a wide range of consumers. ERIC does this by identifying resources, organizing information, applying information science, using literature, synthesizing information, developing new information tools, and developing special information products. While building the database has been its central activity, the most visible and useful ERIC accomplishments are not part of the core ERIC contract. They do, however, stem from the database and the process of building the database.I have argued that ERIC will not be able to provide its current level of services much longer because demand is outpacing institutional and personal capacity. If ERIC maintains the low levels of service the government currently funds, without any effort to redirect and expand resources to meet demonstrated need, the education community will lose. ERIC is the information infrastructure for American education. While operating at a fraction of its capacity, it has effectively provided access to the wide range of information and information services produced across the country. The need to build this education information infrastructure is increasing. Perhaps more than ever, the education community needs to use information to inform decision-making at all levels. The daily instructional activities of America's 3,000,000 elementary and secondary school teachers should be guided by sound educational practices. Administrators and policymakers should benefit from the management decisions made by their colleagues. Research is a cumulative science and should be built on the methods and findings of other researchers with built-in mechanisms for dissemination and feedback from practitioners. The need to build and maintain the education information infrastructure exists and the responsibility falls squarely on the U.S. Department of Education. Historically, there have been two criteria in determining the appropriateness of government interventions (programs):
ERIC could be doing a great deal more in its quest to provide information to the education community. I have mentioned several things ERIC is not doing:
The ERIC of today is confronted with a vastly different user base, mode of access, mix of services and set of demands. No, ERIC is not ready for this new environment. It has the ability, but not the resources and not the guidance. In my view, this will hurt not only the research community, but more importantly, teachers and practitioners who have neither the time, desire or ability to sift through today's overwhelming volumes of potential resources. Notes
EndorsementsThe Directors of the following ERIC Clearinghouses have indicated that they concur with most, but not necessarily all, of the points raised in this article:
ReferencesColker, Laura J. (2000). Reminiscences from the Field: The Continuing Story of ERIC. Springfield, VA: Dyntel Corporation. Eisenberg, Mike; Henson, Jane; Howley, Craig; Cawley, Nancy; Ramirez, Bruce; Rothenberg, Dianne (1997). Rising Expectations: A Framework for ERIC's Future in the National Library of Education. Report of the ERIC Operations Framework Task Force. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED410969) ERIC Annual Report 1999. Available. Online: http://www.accesseric.org/resources/annual99/index.html
Hoffman, Charlene M (1995). Federal Support for
Education. Fiscal Years 1980 to 1995. Washington, DC:
National Center for Educational Statistics. (ERIC Document
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Lynch, Clifford A. (2000). Technology and the ERIC
System: New Opportunities and New Impacts. Discussion Draft
for March 8, 2000 ERIC Director's Meeting.
Mathtech (1998a). Shaping the Future of Educational
Research, Development, and Communication. OERI
Reauthorization Working Papers Prepared for the National
Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board (ERIC
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Mathtech (1998b). A Review of the Federal Role and the
Department of Education Structure. OERI Reauthorization
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Research Policy and Priorities Board (ERIC Document
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Rudner, Lawrence M. (1997). ERIC and NLE: Past, Present,
and Future. Paper prepared for the National Educational
Research Policy and Priorities Board. May 30, 1997.
Rudner, Lawrence M. (2000). Who Is Going to Mine Digital
Library Resources?
And How? D-Lib Magazine, 6(5) May 2000. On-line:
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may00/rudner/05rudner.html.
Stalford, Charles B.; Stern, Joyce D. (1990). Major
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Trester, Delmer J. (1981). ERIC: The First Fifteen
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Lawrence Rudner is with the College of Library and Information Services,
University of Maryland, College Park. He has been involved in quantitative
analysis for over 30 years, having served as a university professor,
a branch chief in the U.S. Department of Education, and a classroom
teacher. For the past 12 years, he has been the Director of the ERIC
Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation, an information service
sponsored by the National Library of Education, U.S. Department
of Education. Dr. Rudner holds
a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology (1977), an MBA in Finance (1991),
and lifetime teaching certificates from two states.
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Copyright 2000 by the Education Policy Analysis ArchivesThe World Wide Web address for the Education Policy Analysis Archives is epaa.asu.edu General questions about appropriateness of topics or particular articles may be addressed to the Editor, Gene V Glass, glass@asu.edu or reach him at College of Education, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-0211. (602-965-9644). The Commentary Editor is Casey D. Cobb: casey.cobb@unh.edu . EPAA Editorial Board
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