1. Key Links
1.1. Thesaurus Site
1.2. Intro Video
1.3. History pdf
2. Stands for
2.1. "The Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors"
2.2. ERIC = Educational Resources Information Center
3. Overview
3.1. Improves your ERIC searchs
3.2. Helps structure records in ERIC
3.3. Why Needed?
3.3.1. Increase in education research
3.3.1.1. led to -->
3.3.1.1.1. researchers couldn't find papers
3.4. Scope
3.4.1. Each term in thesaurus = subject covered in collection
3.5. Two main types of terms
3.5.1. Descriptors
3.5.1.1. Any ERIC subject only has one or two descriptors
3.5.2. Synonyms
3.5.2.1. e.g.
3.5.2.1.1. popular abreviations
3.5.2.1.2. variable spellings
3.5.2.1.3. user terms
3.5.2.2. One ERIC subject can have many synonyms
4. Special Note
4.1. User's of ERIC search don't "have to" use the thesaurus because ...
4.2. The search engine incorporates the thesaurus
5. History
5.1. 50-yrs old
5.1.1. first release: 1964
5.1.2. Sent to:
5.1.2.1. Boards of Education
5.1.2.2. 100 Largest Cities
5.1.2.3. School district in each congressional district
5.2. One of the oldest
5.2.1. Serves as a guild for other thesauri
5.3. Federally funded
5.3.1. from Office of Ed feasibility study, 1959
5.4. "ERIC" coined 1961
5.5. Fully Digital: 2004
6. Use
6.1. Two ways
6.1.1. Directly from website
6.1.2. Available for download
6.2. Descriptor Term Entries include:
6.2.1. The term itself
6.2.2. Scope Note
6.2.2.1. the definition used by ERIC
6.2.3. List of similar terms
6.2.4. Its category
6.2.5. Broader Terms
6.2.6. Narrower Terms
6.2.7. List of synonmys
6.2.7.1. also called "use this term instead of"