Skip to Main Content

ECS 300: Finding Articles and Documents in ERIC

ERIC: Introduction and getting to it

  •  ERIC is the biggest educational database in the world
  • Indexes both journal articles and ERIC documents -- documents of all sorts reproduced by ERIC online, though the older ones are on microfiche. Includes books, theses, curriculum documents, book chapters, reports, etc. Some are books not available through ERIC
  • Several of the documents are available full text online through a link; so are a few of the journal articles. Other journal articles from ERIC may be available through our other databases, or in paper copy in the library
  • We don’t own all the journals and documents indexed in it, either in paper copy or online

      To get to it:

  • Click on the link at the top of this box, or:
  • Go to the library’s homepage: http://www.uregina.ca/library/
  • Click the Databases tab in the middle of the screen
  • At Find Database by Subject, use the drop-down menu to select Education, and click Find
  • Scroll down and click ERIC
  • If you’re off campus, you will be prompted to enter your U of R user ID and password. Your user ID is your last name, without hyphens and in lower case, and your password is the barcode number (not student number) on your student ID card. Or you can use your U of R computer lab/email/URCourses ID and password instead
  • Click Advanced Search above the search box: it's easier to use due to giving you a fill-in-the-blanks format
  • Note both the Help link with the question mark at the top right of the page: , and the Tips link above the search boxes: the Help will provide help on doing an Advanced Search, and the Tips provide help with things like Boolean operators, phrase searching, etc.

ERIC Thesaurus

  • ERIC has a thesaurus of subject terms, called descriptors, that are assigned to all the articles and documents indexed in the database. To get to the thesaurus, click the Advanced Search and then Thesaurus on the top right of the page.
  • In the Thesaurus search box, type: learning style
  • N.B. ERIC uses American spellings
  • The thesaurus tells you to use “Cognitive Style” instead
  • Click Show Details beside Cognitive Style
  • The ERIC thesaurus gives you the definition of the term and broader, narrower and related terms you might use as synonyms in your search. Notice that "Multiple Intelligences" is a related term
  • There are terms in the ERIC thesaurus to describe educational levels, e.g. "Secondary Education", "High Schools", "Junior High Schools," etc. All documents and journal articles going into ERIC have to have one of these terms assigned to them