Graduate Programs in Education: A Guide for Library Research  Tags: education m.a.t. m.ed.  

Academic Search Premier

This index is a broad ranging general index to popular and scholarly periodicals covering all fields of knowledge. The index covers some 3,100 periodicals. For 1,000 titles, the full-text of the articles is included with varying starting date for each title that generally falls between 1993 and 1998. Found in the General & Reference section of Earlham's databases.

EBSCOhost Family of Databases.

EBSCO is the name of the company that provides access to databases. There are many and those that are useful to education candidates are listed on these pages and the All Databases page of the libraries' web site. All databases have the same interface and which provides a useful consistency but also can be confusing because the appearance will not distinguish one database from another. You must carefully read the "in box below the search area in the database to know which database you are using.

In addition to the EBSCOhost interface there is an interface that provides access to a number of databases for all citizens of the state of Indiana and all students studying in Indiana. This is a terrific resource for you to use with your students. It is called -- INSPIRE.

ERIC - Educational Resources Information Center 1966 to the present.

ERIC is a comprehensive index with abstracts to references for 1.2 million publications. The database includes journal articles, books, theses, curricula, conference papers, standards and guidelines and research reports. This last category includes a type of "gray" literature that is accessed only through ERIC. These are publications of individuals, individual school corporations or investigative organizations. ERIC provides a link to the full text of these and some other documents but many items, especially the journal articles, need to be accessed either through Earlham's SFX service* or by using interlibrary loan. Because ERIC's own Web site is not linked to Earlham's SFX service the EBSCOhost version of ERIC is preferable.

*SFX service is a button that appears within library databases that provide a link to the full text of a journal article or information about how to get access to the item.

EBSCOhost version. ERIC Web version

Professional Development Collection

This database includes bibliographic citations and some full-text for journal articles across a wide range of periodicals. The articles focus on education topics but may or may not come from education journals. This is an index designed for a profession rather than to cover a subject area. This can be both useful and frustrating. It ought always be used on combination with ERIC and other databases and rarely will it completely satisfy your needs.

PsycINFO, 1887 to the present

PsycINFO is the comprehensive index to the scholarly literature in psychology. Books, journal articles, and research reports from around the world are included. Each entry includes an abstract that summarizes the nature of the article and its content. Within the database there are links to full-text articles if they are available. The interface for this search tool is similar to Academic Search elite. Found in the Social Sciences section of Earlham's databases.

Web of Science, 1981 to present

The Web of Science (bad name!) is actually three databases that can be search individually or in any combination. They are entitled: Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences, and Sciences. The databases can be searched by a variety of key word approaches --subject, author, organizational affiliation-- or by citation. This last feature is unique in the world of indexing. It allows the user to identify works that have cited a known work. Therefore, a relevant citation which a researcher has already identified can be searched to see what works were subsequently published based on the known work. The "web" part of the name is indicative of the complex linking of articles among each other. The first use of this complex database is best done with the aid of an experienced user. See a reference librarian for help.

Lexis-Nexis Academic

If you have heard of Lexis-Nexis you may think of it as a newspaper index or an index to legal materials. In fact it is a multifaceted collection of interlocking databases that contain newspapers, judicial and legislative documents, professional and trade journals, wire service releases, transcripts and many other forms of print information. L-N can be used for a variety of purposes. Those specifically related to teaching and education include research on educational law, judicial decisions in edcuation, and news in education both in the U.S. and world wide. L-N also has directories that will allow you to get biographical information on people, Finally the interface allows the user to search for specific companies.