The ERIC bibliographic record includes a Peer-Reviewed field that notes the peer-reviewed status of ERIC journal article records, and identifies peer-reviewed U.S. Department of Education publications indexed from 2005-forward. The peer-reviewed designation is displayed in ERIC records as "Yes"; otherwise the field is blank.
Librarians on the ERIC staff review a maximum of three resources to determine the journal's peer-reviewed designation:
- Ulrichsweb - if the title is designated as 'Refereed', ERIC accepts the designation; otherwise staff check
- The Serials Directory - if the title is identified as 'Peer-Reviewed', ERIC accepts the designation; otherwise staff check
- Information provided on the publisher's website - if it is determined that the journal is peer reviewed, ERIC accepts the identification; the start of the peer-review process for a journal is also noted, if available, and applied to the relevant range of ERIC records.
There is no differentiation between journals with a general peer-review process and those with a blind peer-review process, and no requirement for a specific number of reviewers. However, if the only review performed was by a journal editor, ERIC does not designate the title as peer reviewed.
For journal records, the designation is maintained at the journal level and automatically assigned to ERIC records created for the articles in each issue. On occasion a peer-reviewed journal may include some articles that are not peer reviewed; ERIC does not distinguish these exceptions. Users may look up the peer-reviewed status of a journal by selecting the title on the Journal List to view the Journal Details pop-up. Historical information, such as the start date of a journal's peer review process, is not included in the pop-up.
In March 2012, ERIC began a project to incrementally update the peer-reviewed status of backfile journal records (indexed 1966 - 2003) ) to enhance the collection for the research community, with completion expected within the calendar year.
