Information & Library Services

1. Information & Library Services Australian Education Index, British Education IndexandERIC • Sally Giffen • August 2006

2. Dialog DataStar hosts: • AEI: contains more than 130,000 documents relating to educational research, policy and practice. • BEI: provides information on research, policy and practice in education and training in the UK. • ERIC: the largest database in the world relating to education.

3. Go to university home page – www.gre.ac.uk – and click on ‘student portal’

4. Use your university network username and password to login, in or outside the university

5. Go to the Library & Computing tab on the portal then Click on Databases & Journals or (via Athens DA) if accessing from home NB, Athens DA must be used off-campus

6. From within the University, select Electronic Databases A-Z Then British Education Index – Intranet access, (or ERIC or AEI – Intranet Access)and click to enter the Database

7. If using Athens DA, click on Resources to see list of databases available From list of databases, select Dialog DataStar

8. Help at top of screen is always available. For Basic searchtick database(s) and click on Easy search. Formore complex searching, tick and click on Advanced search. Info button gives information about the database. Easy search offers more help in linking terms so may be the better option to begin with. It is possible to change to Advanced search during the search. If searching more than one database at once, search options not common to all databases will not be available.

9. Type word or phrase to search in search box. See Search tips for help. Terms may be linked using options from the drop-down box. Other drop-down boxes list searchable areas of document. Use i for more information. Options include limiting by publication year, language, and document type

10. To search for an author, select Author(s) from the drop-down box and enter surname hyphen initial followed by wildcard character $. Search for journal titles by selecting Journal name andhyphenating the words in the title. Using wildcard $ at the end of a truncated keyword will search variations, eg. underachiev$ will search underachievement, underachieving and underachieve.

11. Searching with ? at the end of a word displays a list of similar terms Then preferred term can be selected and searched from list

12. Searches can be built up using links fromthedrop-down boxes to link keywords. Once terms are input, click on Search. • And links terms, eg: Secondary and Pastoral care will retrieve records which contain both terms • Or retrieves records which contain either term, eg: Autismor Asperger • Not excludes records containing the term, eg: Literacy not Reading will retrieve records which contain the first term, but not if the second is also present

13. The Thesaurus lists Descriptors used to index documents. To check indexing terms, type term, tick Thesaurus mapping, enter your search term, then click on Search.List of Descriptors displays. Tick relevant Descriptors, select link word from drop-down box and click on Search

14. Click on the Post-it next to the Descriptor for details of the Scope of each term A new window will give the information, plus a list of related Descriptors which may be of use as additional search terms.

15. Search results are listed twenty at a time. Mark relevant items by clicking on box to left. Click on Next titles to bring up next page. If searching more than one database, Remove duplicates will remove duplicate records. (Click on Link to Abstract/Database record to display further information)

16. Mongraph (book) records list title, publisher, place of publication, date, number of pages, ISBN and author(s) Journal records list title of article, title of journal, date, volume, part and page numbers, ISSN and author(s). Publications freely available on the internet list title of article, source, including URL (web address) of article, date, number of pages and author(s). Select URL to link to full text of document.

17. Selecting Link to Abstract/database will display Notes on the subject matterwhere present and Descriptors (terms used to index the article) which give more information about the article. Use Titles keyto return to list.

18. At the end of each Titles screen, the option is given to Display, Save, Print preview or Printcomplete screen. The Display format and Output format can be selected from the choice given. If choosing Printpreview, use print command from toolbar or from File drop-down menu to print

19. Searches may be saved Temporarily (8 hours) or Permanently (until deleted by user) To retrieve saved searches, click on Saved searches button and click on link to Existing saved searches. Saved searches may be edited, run again, or deleted

20. Easy search may be continued as Advanced search by clicking the Search page navigation button, then clicking Advanced search Previous search(es) done in Easy search will display.

21. Previous searches are numbered. Search terms can be added to numbered search using and, or, not. Results will display as additional searches. Click on Show titles to see result. Rank can be used to find statistical trends in search results

22. Additional search terms may be selected from lists e.g.Publication types allows searching for different categories of publication, for example review articles or research reports

23. Limit allows limiting search by date, Repeat allows the same search to be done in a different database, Remove duplicates removes duplicate records found by overlapping coverage in databases, Split displays number of documents from each database after duplicates have been removed. Create alert (when available) allows you to be notified when new documents matching your search criteria are published

24. At the end of your search Log off. There is an automatic logout if the database is unused for 10 minutes. Searches are lost after logout unless the Save search feature is used