[AAACE-NLA]Proposed ERIC Legislation: The Good & Bad News

[George E. Demetrion]

I found this statement in my files, which is an excellent overview of the
proposed legilation over ERIC, (GD)
__________________________________________________________

ACTION ALERT: ERIC Clearinghouses on the Chopping Block!

The U.S. Department of Education has issued a draft Statement of Work
(SOW)
for a NEW ERIC system. Unless the draft SOW is modified, all 16
Clearinghouses and their services (including AskERIC, Digests, and other
publications) will be eliminated. The public has an opportunity to
comment
on these proposed changes until May 9, 2003.
(4-20-2003)

The Good News. It's not all bad news. A number of improvements long
advocated by the ERIC Clearinghouses have been incorporated into the
draft
ERIC Statement of Work. These include:

1.       More rigorous selection criteria for materials added to the
database.

2.       Greater speed in building the database.

3.       Centralized processing of materials for the database.

4.       Better content coding (XML) for searching.

5.       Free full-text copies of many materials.

6.       Better metatagging of content for easier searching.

The Bad News. Unfortunately, however, many of the proposed changes
eliminate
or damage services essential to educators and the general public. The
draft
SOW:
1.       Eliminates all 16 ERIC Clearinghouses. The closing of the
Clearinghouses will eliminate the long-lasting partnerships that ERIC has
developed with rich discourse communities of researchers, practitioners,
and
parents. Under the proposed new Statement of Work, ERIC becomes an
impersonal, automated database.

2.       Eliminates personalized services. Many ERIC customers need
direct
contact with content specialists who can help them obtain information or
clarification before searching the database. Others lack ready access to
a
computer or the skills required to navigate the database. But the draft
SOW
eliminates these personalized services:

a.       AskERIC and other Clearinghouse information services-these
services
respond to nearly 100,000 questions each year.

b.       Digests, books, and other publications.

c.       Clearinghouse Web sites.

d.       Networking and outreach activities.

e.       ERIC-sponsored Listservs.

f.        Referral services.

3.       Reduces coverage of journal literature. The interdisciplinary
nature of the ERIC database would suffer because the number of journals
likely to be covered would be reduced from approximately 1,100 journals
to
fewer than 400.

4.       Eliminates the ERIC synthesis function. ERIC Digests and major
publications provide information in a format and language that makes this
information more accessible to parents and teachers, for whom highly
technical or scholarly writing is not always appropriate.

5.       Restricts consumer access to information. The draft SOW
specifies
the development of "approved lists" of journals and document
contributors.
This strategy increases the possibility that bias can be introduced into
database selection procedures. The draft SOW also calls for limiting
database inclusion to only those items "directly related" to education.
Education priorities change. If ERIC focuses its collection effort
narrowly,
or only on certain priorities, it may miss documents and journal articles
that provide a balanced view of current issues or a longitudinal view of
education trends. Research on information dissemination supports the
current
practice of reflecting a broad range of practices and views in the
database.
The ERIC database is essentially an archive or library that serves best
by
including contributions on a wide variety of topics and points of view.

6.       Limits customer access to Web-based services and information.
ERIC
Clearinghouse-sponsored Web sites are heavily used. Collectively, these
Web
sites received 688 million Web accesses and more than 22.5 million unique
visitors in 2002. Clearinghouse Web statistics suggest that ERIC users
come
to the Clearinghouse Web sites for many purposes other than searching the
ERIC database. For example, in 2002, ERIC Digests were accessed more than
3.6 million times on Clearinghouse Web sites. Customers also use other
full-text materials on these Web sites-FAQs, conference calendars, links,
financial and scholarship information, and directories.

Conclusion
If the proposed changes do not reflect your vision of ERIC, use the
sample
letter (see below) to urge Secretary Paige and your legislators to put
the
16 ERIC Clearinghouses, their information services, and their
user-friendly
products back into the final SOW. Please make your views known by May 9
to:

Secretary of Education Rod Paige

Fax: 202-401-0596 (on letterhead, please)

Email:  Rod.Paige at ed.gov

Your State's Senators:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Your Congressional Representative:

http://www.house.gov/writerep/

*****

For additional up-to-date information on the ERIC SOW, please visit:

DRAFT SOW for ERIC
http://www.eps.gov/spg/ED/OCFO/CPO/Reference-Number-ERIC2003/Attachments.htm
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