Reusable educational resources became increasingly important for enhancing learning and teaching experiences, particularly in the medical domain where resources are particularly expensive to produce. While interoperability across educational resources metadata repositories is yet limited to the heterogeneity of metadata standards and interface…

This paper describes the process of automatic extraction of implicit--global--data from explicit information by file inversion and threading. Each datum is the symbolic representation of a proposition, and as such has a number of movable parts corresponding to the ideal elements of the proposition represented; e.g., subject, predicate. A third…

This discussion of the general principles of structure and construction of numeric databases introduces the concept of data points, their relationship to each other, and their storage in a nonredundant way. The collection of numeric data and their integration into the database structure are explained. Eight references are cited. (EJS)

Rules and guidelines are provided for ERIC catalogers and editors engaged in capturing bibliographic data for the documents and journal articles entered into the ERIC database. A general discussion of the principles of ERIC cataloging, definitions used, use of mandatory vs. optional data elements, etc. is provided in the Introduction. The body…

Rules and guidelines are provided for ERIC catalogers and editors engaged in capturing bibliographic data on the documents and journal articles entered into the ERIC database. The material is organized by data element: Accession Number, Price Code, Pagination, Publication Date, Title, Journal Citation, Language, Publication Type, Descriptors,…

The file organization for the computerized Flora North America (FNA) data bank is described. A four level character hierarchy allows subdivision of any flora description into as many as four levels in order to specify plant character precisely. Terms at any one level will not necessarily be parallel in status. Both PLANTS and LEAVES serve as…

Reports on a series of programs that have been developed to process data bases, consisting of textual items, and to index and arrange (classify) the data items in accordance with an automatically generated classification system. (Author)

Substantial alterations to a system often have little or no effect on particular collections. This may be due to poor separation of relevant and non-relevant documents. The paper presents a procedure for characterizing this separation, which can show whether proposed modifications of the base system are likely to be useful. (8 references)…

Retrieval performance with automatic term classifications for three test collections has been variable. This paper attempts to discover why. The real difference between the collections is in the separation of relevant from non-relevant documents. The separation is so poor that classification cannot be expected to succeed. (14 references)…

Discusses general problems of thesaurus construction theory and practice. Highlights include lexical control and its tools in various databases; natural language versus conceptual networks; systems approach; thesaurus versus classification, including associative relations; and thesaurus role in information storage and retrieval. (110 references)…

Since 1950, the Human Relations Area Files, Inc. has produced what is currently known as the eHRAF Collection of Ethnography. This article explores the reasons why it was created and describes the structure of this complex collection of ethnographic works. Over time, this resource has been produced in four different formats: paper slips,…

The development of a new scheme for classifying the more than 7,000 documents on reading in the ERIC/CRIER data collection is described. An original scheme, developed in the early days of the clearinghouse, provided a means for listing documents in any of 45 broad subject categories in the field of reading and for identification by grade level.…

Suggests new method of external distribution called tree partitioning that involves use of binary tree to split incoming file into successively smaller partitions for internal sorting. Number of disc accesses during a tree-partitioning sort were calculated in simulation using files extracted from British National Bibliography catalog files. (19…

This manual describes information processing procedures for Museum Computer Network (MCN) systems. The first section contains general rules for preparation of input: conventions for all data; conventions for controlling the appearance of output; conventions for automatic sorting of data; conventions for user specified sorting of data; and…

Provides an overview of information retrieval from mainframe systems to Web search engines; discusses collaborative filtering, data extraction, data visualization, agent technology, pattern recognition, classification and clustering, and virtual communities. Argues that rather than huge data-storage centers and proprietary software, we need…