American College of Education

Welcome! American College of Education is committed to providing the best university-level library resources and services to its students, faculty, and course developers. The 21st-century revolution in information and telecommunications technologies is making scholarly and research information increasingly available in digital formats. This significantly improves ways that online students and faculty can identify, access, locate, and use information—anytime and anywhere.

For ACE online students and faculty, "going to the library" means using this high-tech environment to:

search free and fee-based online databases effectively for scholarly information
get assistance from professional librarians via text, e-mail, or phone
link full-text publications to a laptop, mobile phone, tablet, or hand-held book reader (as author and publisher rights allow)
access interlibrary loan services and/or use local libraries for publications not available in digital formats
evaluate the contents of digital and print publications for authenticity, accuracy, objectivity, currency, and completeness of coverage of the subject
integrate information into their research and writing
use information literacy skills for their own lifelong learning
promote information literacy skills to all children in P-12 schools

Our Learning Resource Center directly supports online teaching and learning with both innovative and traditional library services, resources, and online technologies. To access the library database, click on the Library Access button to launch your MyACE portal.

Search Tips and Strategies

How to Conduct Effective Information Searches in Databases and Indexes

Plan your search before you start tapping on the keyboard.
Choose a topic, then turn it into a research question. Ask yourself: What do I already know about the topic? What do I want to know about the topic?
Choose keywords and synonyms from your research question. Keywords are usually the main ideas or concepts in your research question.
To find synonyms for your keywords or subject headings (descriptors) you can:
- use a thesaurus or dictionary on the Web or in print
- use a specific database's thesaurus either online or in print format, such as:
  - Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors
  - Library of Congress Authorities (Subject and Name Headings)
- look at the subject headings (descriptors) used in one good citation or abstract, then do your search using those better subject terms.
Choose a database or online index that best matches the content you are seeking. For Education journal articles with full-text, start with any of these databases: Education Research Complete, ERIC, ProQuest Education Journals, or Wilson Select Plus.
Read the HELP sections of each database before you start searching.
For more precise searches, use subject headings (descriptors) assigned by indexers of journal articles, books, and ERIC documents included in the database. Keyword searches are less precise, but provide a beginning and broad search.

Create your search by combining search terms with Boolean Operators (OR, AND, NOT). Here are examples of how Boolean operators work:

Dogs OR Cats	retrieves every citation with either word (enlarges the retrieved set)
Dogs AND Cats	retrieves every citation with both words (reduces the retrieved set)
Dogs NOT Cats	retrieves every citation with Dogs but leaves out any citation that also has Cats (reduces the set)
Dogs AND (Cats OR MICE)	retrieves every citation with Dogs and either Cats or Mice (enlarges the set)
(Dogs AND Cats) OR MICE	retrieves every citation with both Dogs and Cats, then adds every citation with Mice (enlarges the set)

Enclose search phrases in quotation marks or parentheses to keep words together.

Example: "educational testing"
Start searching.
Evaluate your results by browsing a few retrieved citations. Did you get the results you wanted? If not, do the search again using different search terms and/or different Boolean combinations.

Hint: do not browse through more than about 20 citations. Correct your search strategy and search terms, then redo the search.
Use the Pearl Growing technique for best results:
- Find one good citation using keywords and browsing.
- Look at how that one good citation was indexed in that specific database. What subject headings were assigned to that citation by indexers?
- Using better subject headings or more precise keywords, redo your search.

Books and E-Books
- EBooks
  Produced by: OCLC
  Vendor: OCLC FirstSearch
  Ebooks contains bibliographic records of online electronic books (e-books) in all subjects that are owned and cataloged by OCLC member libraries.
  Coverage: 665,000+ cataloged e-books
  Full-text: none
  - To locate libraries that own specific e-books in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
- ECO Electronic Collections Online
  Produced by: OCLC
  Vendor: OCLC FirstSearch
  ECO Electronic Collections Online database contains bibliographic records of scholarly electronic journals that are owned and cataloged by OCLC member libraries.
  Coverage: 4.2+ million records
  Full-text: None
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try Ebsco’s Education Research Complete, ProQuest Education Journals, or Wilson Select Plus.
- Education Research Complete
  Produced by: Ebsco
  Vendor: Ebsco
  Education Research Complete is an authoritative online resource for Education research. According to Ebsco, this massive file offers the world’s largest and most complete collection of full-text education journals. It is a bibliographic and full-text database covering scholarly research and information relating to all areas of education. Topics covered include all levels of education from early childhood to higher education, and all educational specialties, such as leadership, curriculum, instruction, multilingual education, health education, testing, administration, policy, funding, and related social issues.
  Coverage: 2,330+ journals plus books, monographs, conference papers, and proceedings
  Full-text: Yes - 1,400+ journals and 550+ books and monographs plus numerous conference papers and proceedings
  Includes: Ebsco’s Professional Development Collection
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try ProQuest Education Journals or Wilson Select Plus.
- GPO Monthly Catalog
  Produced by: U. S. Government Printing Office
  Vendor: http://www.gpo.gov/ (1861 to date)
  Vendor: FirstSearch (1976 to date)
  GPO Monthly Catalog is the only comprehensive index of government publications. Established in 1876, the U. S. Government Printing Office is the world’s largest publisher. Government publications are available on Education and every other subject in every academic discipline. Most are free from GPO or the issuing agency, and newer ones may be available on the Web. GPO estimates that today 50% of all U.S. government documents are now born digital.
  Coverage: (GPO): government publications since 1861
  Coverage (FirstSearch): government publications since 1976
  Full-text: Yes – some links to full-text publications are provided by issuing agencies.
  - To locate libraries that have government publications collections in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a journals published by government agencies, try the specific agency’s web site, Ebsco’s Education Research Complete, ProQuest Education Journals, or Wilson Select Plus.
- eBooks (EbscoHost)
  Producer: Ebsco
  Vendor: Ebsco
  eBooks is a collection of full-text e-books. ACE purchased 2009 and 2010 Education publications, and will continue to update this collection.
  Coverage: 2009+ e-books in Education (88 e-books as of March 2011)
  Full-text: Yes
- OAIster
  Producer: OCLC and University of Michigan University Library
  Vendor: OCLC FirstSearch
  OAIster harvests Open Archives Initiative (OAI)-compliant resources in all subjects and disciplines from digital libraries, institutional repositories, and online journals. Its goal is to create a collection of freely available, previously difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources that are easily searchable by anyone. Digital resources include books, articles, born-digital text, audio and image files, datasets, theses, technical and research papers, and image collections.
  Coverage: 23+ million records
  Full-text: Yes
- PapersFirst
  Producer: OCLC
  Vendor: OCLC FirstSearch
  PapersFirst is an index of scholarly papers in all academic disciplines presented at worldwide conferences, symposia, expositions, workshops, and meetings that were received by The British Library Document Supply Centre.
  Coverage: 6.5+ million papers since 1993
  Full-text: none
  - To locate libraries that own specific papers in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
- Proceedings
  Producer: OCLC
  Vendor: OCLC FirstSearch
  Proceedings is a multi-disciplinary index of proceedings of worldwide conferences, symposia, expositions, workshops, and meetings that were received by The British Library Document Supply Centre.
  Coverage: 192,000+ proceedings since 1993
  Full-text: none
  - To locate libraries that own specific conference proceedings in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
- World Almanac
  Producer: World Almanac Education Group
  Vendor: OCLC FirstSearch
  World Almanac database contains Funk & Wagnall’s New Encyclopedia, The World Almanac and Books of Facts, The World Almanac of the U. S. A., The World Almanac of U. S. Politics, and The World Almanac for Kids.
  Coverage: 32,000 articles since 1998
  Full-text: Yes
- WorldCat
  Producer: OCLC and 72,000 libraries worldwide
  Vendor: www.oclc.org and OCLC FirstSearch
  WorldCat is the online catalog of books and all types of other materials located in 72,000+ libraries worldwide. American College of Education is a member of OCLC and WorldCat (OCLC symbol is ILACE.)
  Coverage: 180+ million records dating before 1000 BC to present
  Full-text: none
- WorldCat Dissertations
  Producer: OCLC
  Vendor: www.oclc.org and OCLC FirstSearch
  WorldCat Dissertations is a catalog of dissertations, theses, and published works based on them in all subjects that are owned and cataloged by OCLC member libraries worldwide.
  Coverage: 8+ million records; abstracts are not included
  Full-text: none
ERIC Documents and Educational Tests
- ERIC
  Produced by: U. S. Dept. of Education, 1966-
  Vendors: http://www.eric.ed.gov, Ebsco, ProQuest, and others
  The ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) database is created and distributed free by the U. S. Dept. of Education. ERIC indexes and abstracts education journals, as well as published and unpublished books, monographs, curriculum guides, conference papers, proceedings, position papers, teaching guides, and other educational materials.
  All ERIC journal articles and ERIC documents are assigned subject headings from the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/resources/html/thesaurus/about_thesaurus.html.
  Coverage: 1,100+ journals; 500,000+ other publications; 1.3+ million citations
  Full-text: Yes - 244 journals (EJ) and 330,000+ ERIC documents (ED). Some publications have copyright restrictions placed by the author or publisher.
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try Ebsco’s Education Research Complete, ProQuest Education Journals, or Wilson Select Plus.
- Mental Measurements Yearbook including Tests in Print
  Producer: Buros Institute of Mental Measurements at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln
  Vendor: Ebsco
  Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY) is a comprehensive guide to 2,000+ contemporary testing instruments. The MMY series contains reviews and information essential for a complete evaluation of testing products in psychology, education, business, and leadership. First published by Oscar K. Buros, the MMY series allows users to make knowledgeable judgments and informed selection decisions about the increasingly complex world of testing. MMY database includes the MMY archive of all yearbooks from the first edition in 1938 through the 18th yearbook released in 2010.
  Tests in Print (TIP) is a comprehensive bibliography of all known commercially available tests that are currently in print in the English language. TIP provides vital information to users including test purpose, test publisher, in-print status, price, test acronym, intended test population, administration times, publication date(s), and test author(s).
  Coverage: 7,000+ reviews
  Full-text: Yes – reviews only [no tests are available online]
  Includes other database? Yes – Tests in Print
- Tests in Print
  Producer: Buros Institute of Mental Measurements at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln
  Vendor: Ebsco
  Tests in Print (TIP) is a comprehensive bibliography of all known commercially available tests that are currently in print in the English language. TIP provides vital information to users including test purpose, test publisher, in-print status, price, test acronym, intended test population, administration times, publication date(s), and test author(s).
  Coverage: 7,000+ reviews
  Full-text: Yes – reviews only [no tests are available online]
  Included in another database? Yes – Mental Measurements Yearbook including Tests in Print

Articles and E-Journals
- ArticleFirst
  Produced by: OCLC
  Vendor: OCLC FirstSearch
  ArticleFirst is an index of 27 million articles created from the tables-of-contents of multi-disciplinary journals.
  Coverage: 16,000+ journals
  Full-text: none
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try Ebsco’s Education Research Complete, ProQuest Education Journals, or Wilson Select Plus.
- Child Development & Adolescent Studies (Ebsco)
  Produced by: National Information Services Corporation, MD. Previously published by Society for Research in Child Development, 1927-2001.
  Vendor: Ebsco
  Child Development & Adolescent Studies is an index of book reviews, articles, technical reports, theses, and dissertations related to growth and development of children through age of 21.
  Coverage: 238 journals
  Full-text: none
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try Ebsco’s Education Research Complete, ProQuest Education Journals, or Wilson Select Plus.
- Chronicle of Higher Education
  Produced by: Chronicle of Higher Education
  Vendor: www.chronicle.com
  The Chronicle of Higher Education is a weekly online newspaper covering news, statistics, special reports, and job openings in colleges and universities in the U. S. and worldwide.
  Coverage: one newspaper
  Full-text: yes
- ClasePeriodica
  Produced by: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
  Vendor: OCLC FirstSearch
  Clase and Periódica are two separate databases in one. Clase indexes documents published since 1975 in Latin American and Caribbean journals in the social sciences and humanities. Periódica includes citations to articles and other documents published since 1978 in Latin American and Caribbean scientific and technological journals.
  Coverage: 2,700+ journals published in Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English languages; 455,000+ citations in Spanish language
  Full-text: none
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try Ebsco’s Education Research Complete, ProQuest Education Journals, or Wilson Select Plus.
- Education Abstracts/Full-Text (Wilson)
  Produced by: H. W. Wilson Co., 1920-
  Vendor: Ebsco
  Education Abstracts/Full-Text indexes and abstracts articles from education journals published since 1983, education yearbooks published since 1994, and books in education published since 1995. Subjects covered include adult education, continuing education, library science, literacy standards, multicultural/ethnic education, teaching methods, and more.
  Coverage: 770+ journals, yearbooks, monographs
  Full-text: Yes – 350+ journals back to 1996
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try Ebsco’s Education Research Complete or Wilson Select Plus.
- Education Research Complete
  Produced by: Ebsco
  Vendor: Ebsco
  Education Research Complete is an authoritative online resource for Education research. According to Ebsco, this massive file offers the world’s largest and most complete collection of full-text education journals. It is a bibliographic and full-text database covering scholarly research and information relating to all areas of education. Topics covered include all levels of education from early childhood to higher education, and all educational specialties, such as leadership, curriculum, instruction, multilingual education, health education, testing, administration, policy, funding, and related social issues.
  Coverage: 2,330+ journals plus books, monographs, conference papers, and proceedings
  Full-text: Yes - 1,400+ journals and 550+ books and monographs plus numerous conference papers and proceedings
  Includes: Ebsco’s Professional Development Collection
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try ProQuest Education Journals or Wilson Select Plus.
- Education Week
  Produced by: Editorial Projects in Education, Bethesda, MD
  Vendor: www.edweek.org
  Education Week is a national newspaper focusing on K-12 education policy. Serving as a bridge between the worlds of policy and practice, Education Week is now recognized as "American education’s newspaper of record."
  Coverage: one newspaper
  Full-text: yes
- Educational Administration Abstracts
  Produced by: University Council for Educational Administration, 1966-
  Vendor: Ebsco
  Educational Administration Abstracts includes bibliographic records covering educational administration, leadership, management, educational research, and other areas. EBSCO has digitized the full archive of this index, bringing coverage back to 1966.
  Coverage: 280+ journals; 190,000+ bibliographic records
  Full-text: None
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try Ebsco’s Education Research Complete, ProQuest Education Journals, or Wilson Select Plus.
- ERIC
  Produced by: U. S. Dept. of Education, 1966-
  Vendors: http://www.eric.ed.gov, Ebsco, ProQuest, and others
  The ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) database is created and distributed free by the U. S. Dept. of Education. ERIC indexes and abstracts education journals, as well as published and unpublished books, monographs, curriculum guides, conference papers, proceedings, position papers, teaching guides, and other educational materials.
  All ERIC journal articles and ERIC documents are assigned subject headings from the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/resources/html/thesaurus/about_thesaurus.html.
  Coverage: 1,100+ journals; 500,000+ other publications; 1.3+ million citations
  Full-text: Yes - 244 journals (EJ) and 330,000+ ERIC documents (ED). Some publications have copyright restrictions placed by the author or publisher.
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try Ebsco’s Education Research Complete, ProQuest Education Journals, or Wilson Select Plus.
- Google Scholar
  Produced by: Google
  Vendor: www.googlescholar.com
  Google Scholar is a keyword search engine of journal articles harvested daily from the Web, as well as U. S. patents and legal opinions.
  Coverage: all Web pages on the Internet
  Full-text: Yes – full-text articles that are copyright-free; free full-text patents and federal legal opinions
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try Ebsco’s Education Research Complete, ProQuest Education Journals, or Wilson Select Plus.
- GPO Monthly Catalog
  Produced by: U. S. Government Printing Office
  Vendor: http://www.gpo.gov/ (1861 to date)
  Vendor: FirstSearch (1976 to date)
  GPO Monthly Catalog is the only comprehensive index of government publications. Established in 1876, the U. S. Government Printing Office is the world’s largest publisher. Government publications are available on Education and every other subject in every academic discipline. Most are free from GPO or the issuing agency, and newer ones may be available on the Web. GPO estimates that today 50% of all U.S. government documents are now born digital.
  Coverage: (GPO): government publications since 1861
  Coverage (FirstSearch): government publications since 1976
  Full-text: Yes – some links to full-text publications are provided by issuing agencies.
  - To locate libraries that have government publications collections in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a journals published by government agencies, try the specific agency’s web site, Ebsco’s Education Research Complete, ProQuest Education Journals, or Wilson Select Plus.
- MEDLINE
  Producer: U. S. National Library of Medicine
  Vendors: www.pubmed.gov, FirstSearch
  Medline is the premier international bibliographic database covering all fields of medicine including psychology, psychiatry, nursing, dentistry, nutrition, education, and social services.
  Coverage: 19,000+ journals; 19+ million citations
  Full-text: Yes – some articles are linked to full-text sources
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try Ebsco’s Education Research Complete, ProQuest Education Journals, or Wilson Select Plus.
- OAIster
  Producer: OCLC and University of Michigan University Library
  Vendor: OCLC FirstSearch
  OAIster harvests Open Archives Initiative (OAI)-compliant resources in all subjects and disciplines from digital libraries, institutional repositories, and online journals. Its goal is to create a collection of freely available, previously difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources that are easily searchable by anyone. Digital resources include books, articles, born-digital text, audio and image files, datasets, theses, technical and research papers, and image collections.
  Coverage: 23+ million records
  Full-text: Yes
- Professional Development Collection
  Producer: Ebsco
  Vendor: Ebsco
  Professional Development Collection is a specialized collection of electronic journals especially for professional educators, professional librarians and education researchers.
  Coverage: 729 journals
  Full-text: Yes - 519 journals
  Included in other database? Yes – in Education Research Complete
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try ERIC, ProQuest Education Journals or Wilson Select Plus.
- ProQuest Education Journals
  Producer: ProQuest
  Vendor: ProQuest
  ProQuest Education Journals covers scholarly literature on primary, secondary, and higher education, special education, home schooling, adult education, and hundreds of related topics.
  Coverage: 919+ journals published since 1991
  Full-text: Yes – 660 journals
  - To locate libraries that own specific journals in your zip code, go to www.worldcat.org.
  - To locate full-text of a specific article not available in this database, try Ebsco’s Education Research Complete or Wilson Select Plus.

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