The U.S. Department of Education has awarded a five-year, $34.6 million contract to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) of Rockville, Md., along with its subcontractors, to develop and operate a new database system for the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC). The ERIC database will use the latest search and retrieval methods to cull education literature and give high-quality access to educators, researchers, and the general public.

The ERIC database is the world's largest education database. Begun in 1966, it is composed of more than one million bibliographic records. The goal of the new ERIC is to provide more education materials quicker, and more directly, to audiences through the Internet.

With the new ERIC, individuals will be able to go to one Web site to search a comprehensive database of journal articles and document abstracts and descriptions and, for the first time, directly access full text. The database will include as much free full text as possible, and links will be provided to commercial sources so that individuals can purchase journal articles and other full text immediately.

"This is a major milestone in furthering the objectives of No Child Left Behind," said Secretary of Education Rod Paige. "For the first time, educators and policy makers will have an easy to use resource for gaining quick access to comprehensive and up-to-date information and research about education."

Libraries will also be able to indicate their in-house holdings so that individuals do not purchase information that is already available to them. Materials will be added to ERIC within one month of release, and authors will submit conference papers through an online system.

Development of the new ERIC database model will begin in this month under the following plan:

• A steering committee of technical experts will recommend operational guidelines for the database.

• Groups of content experts will recommend guidelines for identifying journal and non-journal materials for the database.

• Public forums will be organized to solicit ideas for making the database highly useful to educators, researchers, and the general public.

• Electronic systems for acquiring materials and authorizations for dissemination, managing content, and providing an efficient, searchable database will be implemented.

The contract was awarded to CSC, along with its subcontractors, Research Triangle Institute (RTI) of Research Triangle Park, N.C., NATECH of Coos Bay, Ore., DB Consulting of Silver Spring, Md., and CurrenTech, Inc. of Columbia, Md. The CSC team couples a research firm with a leading technology firm to address a major reengineering of the ERIC database, with an emphasis on quality control and continuous technological improvement. The RTI curators will select materials for the database, working with new standards and criteria to be developed with the steering committee, content experts, and public input.

During the development and transition to the new ERIC, the ERIC database will continue to be available at http://www.eric.ed.gov, and materials selected in 2003 will continue to be added. Until the new model is operational in 2004, no new materials will be accepted for the database. The department will post updated information about the transition on the ERIC Web site and will contact publishers, education organizations, and other database contributors when the new model is ready to begin adding journal articles and other materials this year.

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