| Searching
for Information on Education |
By
John Feulner
In this series of articles I will
discuss various sources of information
in the broad area of education: from
(US) Government databases to experts in
education departments at universities
and information available on the
Internet. It is amazing how much
material there is - the ERIC database
alone lists more than a million entries
- so that the selection of the records
and data most pertinent to a question
can easily turn into a nightmare.
Therefore, whenever appropriate, I will
try to point out what to look for and
where, how to get the information you
need, and what pitfalls to avoid.
In this and subsequent communications I
will discuss what information is
available from:
The U.S. Congress and the Federal
government
State and local agencies
Libraries
Associations and societies
State and private universities
Commercial information providers
Individuals
U.S. Department
of Education
ERIC, the world's largest database
of education-related information is
being maintained by the Department's
Office of Educational Research and
Improvement (OERI): Sixteen separate
Clearinghouses, nine Adjunct
Clearinghouses, and an Affiliate
Clearinghouse, each one devoted to a
specific subject in education, identify,
acquire, and process publications in
their fields of interest for inclusion
in the main ERIC database. The
Clearinghouses provide search and
reference assistance and access to their
own specialized, as well as the general
main collection. Additional access to
the database and to the actual documents
in microform is available at about 3,000
locations worldwide in major public and
university libraries.
There are basically two parts to the
database: one consisting of reports,
documents, research papers, etc.
collected in the ED (educational
documents) series; the other is devoted
to articles from regularly published
journals in the EJ (educational
journals) collection. Some libraries
with strong holdings in journals may
forego acquiring the EJ article
collection and only maintain access to
the database. Teachers, librarians,
students, parents, and others may send
e-mail inquiries to AskERIC, an
electronic question answering service,
and its National Parent Information
Network, NPIN at: accesseric@accesseric.org
The best website for the most complete
list of the ERIC Clearinghouses
with their fields of interest,
addresses, telephone-, TTY-, fax
numbers, e-mail- and Internet addresses,
followed by a listing of ERIC
'Support' Centers (reference and
document providers) and publishers that
print ERIC generated and sponsored
studies and the Indexes to the databases
is: http://www.eric.ed.gov/sites/barak.html
Since the ERIC database is built on the
principle of comprehensiveness rather
than qualitative selection, many of the
reports and articles contained in the
database are not of first-rate quality,
even though the titles and keywords may
suggest otherwise; this is especially
true of short papers (less than 10
pages); therefore: if you can get to a
library where these documents and
articles are available in microform,
have a look at them first before you
spend money ordering or copying a
report.
full
article...
|
| The
Deep Web |
By Alistair Brett
The deep web, also called the invisible
web, has information that search engines
don't index because it is stored in
inaccessible databases. Also, many web
pages are not pages in a static web-site
directory architecture, but may be
dynamic pages served from databases.
According to Danny Sullivan at The
Search Engine Report, quoting a
study from BrightPlanet, the
inaccessible part of the web is about
500 times larger than the web that can
be accessed by search engines.
The Report contains useful links to
strategies for searching the deep web:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/00/08-deepweb.html
A more detailed 17 page white paper on
finding hidden value in the deep web: http://www.brightplanet.com/deepcontent/tutorials/DeepWeb/
deepwebwhitepaper.pdf
direct search, compiled by Gary
Price, The George Washington University,
Washington, DC, is "a growing
compilation of links to the search
interfaces of resources that contain
data not easily or entirely
searchable/accessible from general
search tools like Alta Vista, Google, or
Hotbot."
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/direct.htm
Finally, Free Pint - a free e-mail
newsletter with tips for Internet
researchers and business users around
the world - has an article with links
the invisible web:
http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/080600.htm#feature
|
About
this Newsletter
This Newsletter is a
production of the Technology Education
& Communication Institute (TECI)
Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Since 1994 we have consulted and managed
projects in technology development,
distributed learning, and information
access. After two years of development cristalla.com
is being launched to provide courses,
seminars, workshops - and, services to
those who would like to develop their
own online learning.
We look forward to hearing your thoughts
and ideas.
alistair@cristalla.com
erika@cristalla.com
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|
| Contents |
Searching for Information on Education
The Deep Web |
| Selected
cristalla.com links |
Sometimes search results can be
overwhelming. A Google search for
"online learning support"
produces more than 1.8 million results.
More is not necessarily more useful.
At cristalla.com we are
helping you to narrow your search by
carefully selecting publications and
electronic resources to provide the
knowledge you want, or to serve as the
staring point for further research. Use
"Advanced search" if
you're not sure how to spell a word, or
want to narrow down your search.
The most popular searches by cristalla.com
visitors during April from our 66
annotated categories were:
Brain-based
learning
Knowledge
management
Knowledge
formation & construction
Learning/teaching
Multiple
intelligences
Collaborative
learning. |
|
