The Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) is a national information network designed to provide users with ready access to education literature. One of the clearinghouses is the ERIC Counseling and Personnel Services Clearinghouse (CAPS). Established at The University of Michigan in 1966, CAPS was one of the original ERIC clearinghouses.…

Public discourse on the pedagogical uses of information technology runs the gamut from utopian to apocalyptic. Two ideologies in particular have received much attention. The first, restructuralism, calls for radically restructuring postsecondary institutions from the ground up to respond effectively to social, demographic, and economic changes in…

Currently, the World Wide Web contains an estimated 7.4 million sites (OCLC, 2001). Yet even the most experienced searcher, using the most robust search engines, can access only about 16% of these pages (Dahn, 2001). The other 84% of the publicly available information on the Web is referred to as the "hidden,""invisible," or…

In the early years of the Internet, there was an expectation that the availability and easy access to online resources of unparalleled abundance would increase educational equity throughout the socio-economic spectrum. In fact, research suggests that patterns of technology access often mirror existing inequalities rather than mitigate them, and if…

Educators have understood the potential of technology in supplementing the instructional process, including the use of technology in the area of assessment. Technology used with good testing practices offers some capabilities that add value to educational assessment. These include: accessibility; immediate feedback; ability to use new assessment…

Ten commonly held misconceptions about the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) information system are presented together with a brief discussion of the facts for each one. These factual responses provide the following overview of the ERIC system. ERIC is a national information system that includes 16 clearinghouses and four support…

Too often, search engines don't see and directories can overlook clearinghouses, digital libraries, full-text databases, and learning objects. In contrast, the hidden Web is rich with these high quality and cutting-edge learning materials. By integrating resources from the hidden Web into the classroom, educators extend their instruction in new…

This update to a previous digest briefly describes the Internet computer network, the physical connections and communication protocols that make it possible, and the applications and information resources the network provides. The applications covered include electronic mail and listservs, the world wide web, telnet connections with remote library…

The difficult transitions of adolescence combined with the challenges of learning a new language and culture can be overwhelming for immigrant secondary school students. This Digest highlights three ways educators can help students through these critical transitions and provides brief descriptions of three programs that are working to facilitate…

Arguing that the foundation of a free civilization is an informed citizenry, this ERIC digest discusses the new challenges faced by the government and libraries in the wake of the Information Age. As electronic technology has accelerated the production and transmission of information, it has become more difficult for the average citizen to access,…

For the purposes of this digest, productivity is defined as ways in which library and information services can assist agencies, industries, and individuals in producing goods and services effectively and profitably. Two fundamental issues that affect productivity are access and control; two major strategies for improving productivity are…

Communication and the exchange of information are key components of the relationships between parents of young children and the staff of programs that serve them. Professionals who work with families are likely to be more effective when they are aware of how aspects of their own communication practices may affect parents' ability and willingness…

With the recent passage of a new law eagerly-awaited by educators, the same type of copyright protected materials that a teacher would ordinarily use in the physical classroom can now--in general--be used in the digital classroom. The "Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act," which President Bush signed into law on…

This digest focuses on the continuing ambiguities libraries and their users face in dealing with copyright in the digital environment. In the networked digital world, the basic principles of copyright are more difficult to apply. Digital copies are easy to create, modify, and manipulate, they are extremely easy to distribute widely over networks,…

ERIC has evolved from a research database into a multi-faceted information system. At the heart of ERIC is the world's largest education database, providing abstracts of more than 850,000 journal articles and documents from a wide range of public and private sources. The system also features a variety of additional products and services designed…