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Research Information in Education - for Free

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Introductory

Researchers who aren't members of academic institutions in the developed world, or who aren't employed by other large and well-funded organisations, can find it difficult to access quality electronic information on education. This page gives a few pointers to sources of reputable information which is avialable without subscription or other download costs.

Of course Google itself will find huge amounts of material on most subjects - but a lot will be found to be of variable quality and relevance - though you could try eg choosing "advanced search" and restricting your search by File Format (choosing "PDF" will tend to retrieve more weighty items than other options).

Google Scholar leads to increasing numbers of articles and books - but many (most?) of the items retrieved can only be read on payment of a fee. (Tip - sometimes a revised search in the main version of Google, using the title of an article you've found but can't access, typed in as a phrase search eg "Inside the black box", may lead you to an alternative version or a related text by the same author which IS freely available)

Click on the links below for some alternative routes into the literature (and don't forget to read the ideas on search formulation at the end)...

General

...covering all subjects

Oaister
Index of digital resources in all subjects, many freely available eg many academic papers from "Digital repositories" are indexed. An alternative is the European Union Driver Project indexing 295 repositories across 38 countries - use Advanced Search to limit by language, date etc; click document title to access the full text.
UNESCO
Unesco offers some free material - click on the various themes on the top navigation bar: Education, Natural Sciences, Social & Human Sciences, Culture, Communication & Information.
Directory of Open Access Journals
DOAJ - free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. "We aim to cover all subjects and languages. There are now 6505 journals in the directory. Currently 2805 journals are searchable" (at article level, as of May 2011 - these are flagged "DOAJ content" in the list of journal titles)
Google Books
Advanced search (click link in small print under "Search Books") enables search to be restricted to free full-text sources by clicking radio button "Full view only" ; searches can also be restricted by date.
British Library "ETHOS" Project (UK Theses)
Project to provide theses in full-text. Substantial number of theses from a wide range of UK universities already available; can limit search to titles immediately downloadable. Do not be put off by need to set up an account, or by need to create an "order" for delivery to your desktop; there's no charge in most instances.
INASP (International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications)
Inasp works to facilitate access to information in developing and transition countries - click the country links to see which resources are available for users from a particular location. Inasp has facilitated the creation of
African Journals Online and Asia Journals Online - some of the articles retrieved through these services are freely available worldwide.
Mendeley
"Organize, share, and discover research papers! Mendeley is a research management tool for desktop & web. You can also explore research trends and connect to other academics in your discipline" - a networking tool for academics, also enables searching of contributors' papers. Currently particularly useful at the interface of education and health. Once a search has retrieved results, can be refined to list only open-access sources. Likely to be of growing significance.

Education

ERIC
Free ERIC - access to more than 1.3 million bibliographic records of journal articles and other education-related materials. Most articles are only available for a fee, but a worthwhile number are freely available online - the Advanced Search has option to restrict to these free electronic documents. ERIC is sponsored by the US Department of Education. (A)
British Education Index / Educationline
Free "access to all of the BEI's records for Education-line texts [mainly full-text papers presented at UK education conferences] ; [links to] internet resources; and [bibliographic records] for journal articles not yet included in the full subscription BEI database"
International Bureau of Education
Much information available free in full text eg "Thinkers on education" series; "Innodata monographs" (A)
EURYDICE
EURYDICE, from the European Union, gives access to "Eurybase" outlining the education systems of the member states; see also "Thematic Studies" for further associated publications.
Classroom resources
...links to some practical rather than theoretical sites - CURRICULAR RESOURCES (NASA space pictures, museum artefacts etc etc); opportunities to see and contribute PUPILS' WORK e.g. creative writing; schools' WEBPAGES; GUIDANCE on using the web in schools.
UK Educational Evidence Portal
Indexes reports, statistical data, policy guidance etc from a range of UK governmental and related agencies eg Learning and Skills Council; Teaching and Learning Research Programme, with links to full text
New Zealand Educational Theses Database
Indexes NZ theses (and some overseas theses relating to NZ) back to 1970; many are aviailable in full-text.

Statistics

Office for National Statistics
ONS (UK) education statistics includes some Scottish statistics
Scottish Government Statistics
Subdivisions include School Education; Lifelong Learning; Children and Young People
Eurostat
European Union statistics; input "Education" in the search box as it is not one of the Eurostat "themes" in order to retrieve resources such as "Education in Europe - key statistics" ; or try "Eurostat yearbook" - chapter 2 is on Education.
Unesco Institute for Statistics
Global statistics on education and related topics
World Health Organisation
Statistics on conditions such as Autism; and on topics such as Health Education
NationMaster
Synthesises data from OECD, CIA World Factbook, etc - select category "Education" and then subcategory eg "Literacy". Also includes resources for teaching with statistics
OECD Education at a Glance 2011
Tables diagrams and commentary on achievement in the OECD and OECD Associate countries; includes PISA data. Downloadable pdf - may be slow to download.
World data on education
More than just statistical data, this profiles 161 education systems - also includes narrative descriptions of aims objectives and practices, plus relevant links to eg Ministry of Education websites.

Health Education

Pubmed
Exhaustive US-origin medical database can be searched for free; advanced search has limit option to retrieve only free full text articles.
World Health Organisation
Recent publications are available free eg "World Health Report"; try selecting "Health topics" ; then "Health education" or "Health promotion" ; then select relevant geographical region to identify suitable resources.

Community Education

This topic, on the border with social work, includes informal education, adult education, and work with young people outside the formal school system. There is a relatively modest literature. In addition to using general education sources above, or exploring output of individual agencies (eg NIACE, NYA in the UK), links below lead to some fruitful sources
YouthWork.com
Links to a broad range of academic articles, practitioner resources etc by a US youth worker
YouthLink Scotland
Leads to a range of UK documents from a variety of agencies; currently modest in scale.
Infed
Texts on community education and development
German Institute for Adult Education
Reports on German issues and on work conducted by the Institute overseas. Some texts are in English.

Search technique

web-searching techniques - this page gives basic tips on website evaluation (from the University of Strathclyde Libraries)

Most research databases offer similar search options, though the way they are activated may differ. Look for any HELP facilities provided.

In formulating searches, consider issues such as: SYNONYMS eg young, adolescent, teenage; LANGUAGE DIFFERENCE eg British voluntary sector is American not-for-profit sector ; PHRASING - are the words you are using likely to be used in titles, or to be used as subject headings? WORD STEMS - how to use the root eg teen? to retrieve also teenage, teenagers, teenaged;GEOGRAPHICAL FACTORS - is material eg on Australia to be excluded or actively included in your search? ; DATE - how far back is material going to be relevant? 3 years? 10 years? Indefinitely?

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David_Alcock

For many years I worked in UK university libraries; this page however is inspired by experiences on 2 projects overseas...

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