A Study on Methods of Documentary Research on Educational Facilities - Focused on the Utilization of the ERIC -

교육시설(敎育施設)에 관한 문헌연구(文獻硏究) 방법(方法) - 미국 ERIC 자료 활용방법을 중심으로 -

This study was taken to increase efficiency in reviewing documents of school facilities from the network of ERIV(Educational Resources and Information Center, USA). Outline of the ERIC network, and the structure, role, function of the ERIC thesaurus are introduced. A thesaurus have developed for information retrieval purpose provides the filing labels which permit information to be stored by one person and retrieved by another. As an information system grows, its thesaurus is systematically built and refined to the point where it represents, in a very special sense, the vocabulary of subject field. The Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors represents such a vocabulary for the field education. An understanding of its origins, its function and its limitations, is just as important to the teacher, the student of education or the educational researcher as it is for the indexer or custodian of the information pool it represents. If the Thesaurus is understood and used in an appropriate way, it can give all educators not only insight into the ERIC system but also an increased awareness of the language of their field. A great many terms are necessary to describe the many aspects of education, and the task of relating them in even an approximately consistent way is an enormous one. The undertaking should be managed by people who not only know what they are talking about but who also should be able to predict what people in their field are lilely to be talking about in the near future. It should also enlist people who are willing to pay term to another within the system. To engage a large number of these two kinds of people over a long period of time is very likely to cost a great deal of money. There is very little proprietary value in producing such a list of terms, for it can very easily be copied, adapted, updated, etc. Thus, because of its high cost and low proprietary value, it becomes a task likely to be funded only by a government. A government has many ways of spending its money. However, after the decision has been made to spend money to produce an authority list, one must decide how this authority is to be delegated. The history of the development of the ERIC Thesaurus is the history of how this authority was delegated. Scientific research has thrived on efforts to define terms as precisely as possible. It is difficult to say with certainty, however, that solutions to social problems have thrived on a simple diet of scientific research. Contemporary crises demand new and imaginative ways of conceiving problems and talking about them. If this Thesaurus or any other scheme for normalizing or controlling language inhibits in the slightest measure the creative use of language, it is against it use. Only if the principles and details of the Thesaurus are misunderstood can it be used as a constraint on language in a negative sense. Students of education of every kind should see the The-saurus as an opportunity to become increasingly self-conscious about their language and thus about their assumptions and their approaches to educational problems.