Internal Database Training: .gov

ERIC = Education Resources Information Center. Offered free for public use by the Department of Education. 

• Extensive FAQ with videos

• ERIC Widget  https://eric.ed.gov/?widget 

• Content: indexes education research from journal articles, books, and grey literature, most from 1996-present

  • Alphabetical Journals List: https://eric.ed.gov/?journals

  • Alphabetical Non-Journals List: https://eric.ed.gov/?nonjournals

    • Kansas Association of School Boards

    • Kansas State Department of Education

  • Journal and Non-Journal Lists by topic area: https://eric.ed.gov/?journaltopics

• No advanced search- uses “smart search technology”

  • Advanced Search Tips: https://eric.ed.gov/?advanced 

  • Boolean, quotes, fields, phrases

• Thesaurus  https://eric.ed.gov/?ti=all 

  • Subject descriptors and synonyms

  •  Dead terms

  • Identifiers- locations, laws/policies, assessments & surveys 

• Helpful Filters

  • Descriptor

  • Publication Type- very detailed, ex: Reports- descriptive, Numerical/quantitative data

  • Education Level- level of topic- middle school, higher education, etc

  • Audience- teachers, parents, counselors, etc

  • Identifiers: Location, Laws/policies, Assessments & Surveys

  • What Works Clearinghouse Rating

    • https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/ 

    • reviews the existing research on different programs, products, practices, and policies in education to provide educators with the information they need to make evidence-based decisions.

    • could be useful to help narrow down topics and start searching

When working with Education students or faculty, I recommend starting with EBSCO's Education Source (3 databases in 1), then move on to ERIC.gov with the keyword/search string lessons learned from EBSCO and use the unique filters. Then if more info is needed, use ProQuest Dissertations and Theses- especially for AEP students doing literature reviews, etc. 

Comparative Searches:

"college readiness" AND math, peer review, full text

• ERIC.gov: 54 results, 2002-2021
• Education Source: 32 results, 2007-2020
• ProQuest Dissertations: (no peer review filter): 11,327 results, 1963-2023
• Google Scholar: (no full text or peer review filter) 25,200 results

Overview

• home of US government's open data/raw data (mainly executive branch)
  • also syndicates data from state and local governments (different licenses/terms of service than federal data when harvesting)
  • data collected under OPEN Government Data Act
• started in 2009 (Obama Administration)
• managed and hosted by US General Services Administration: Technology Transformation Service with a mission of designing and delivering a digital government with and for the American public
• organized around metadata published by government offices
  • harvested from external websites and aggregated on data.gov
  • metadata standards: DCAT-US Schema v1.1 (project open data metadata schema)

Uses

• Guide count: 5 - IDS 801; IDS 804; CRJ 449)
• GIS
• business research
• conduct research, design data visualizations, develop web/mobile applications
• Pros:
  • good place to start when wanting to find govt data and not sure which agency publishes it or what type of data exists around a topic
  • decent documentation focused on how to access the dataset and use it if it's a different format
• Cons:
  • because a lot is open data/open source apps, a lot of dead links or outdated apps
  • aggregated list like this gives insight into the disconnects and inconsistencies of government
  • no consistency with how data is presented/offered

Using the Data Catalog

• enter keywords
• from results page
  • apply sidebar filters: types, tags, formats, groups, organization types, organizations, and categories
  • Searcy by geospatial area by drawing boundary box on the map and click "apply"
    • tags of type of resources/dataset: HTML, PDF, XLS, JPEG, CSV, XML
    • Other: Esri REST or WMS (ArcGIS or CartoDB); JSON (javascript object syntaxt structured data), API; RDF (resource description framework to represent info on the web, sitemaps and metadata);  BIN; WMS; KML
    • tags type of dataset: Federal, State, City
  • click on title to go to dataset detail page
    • Overview of dataset, publisher, how data is provided, access and use info
      • some datasets are downloadable as .xlsx, others have html/webpage resources or PDFs, metadata is also downloadable
    • Other links to landing pages that describe the dataset in more detail or provide additional context/info or documentation to help you access/use that data

Topics

• browse datasets by existing topics
  • Agriculture, Climate, Energy, Local Government, Maritime, Ocean, Older Adults Health
• Each topic page has:
  • updates/highlights featuring different datasets (not very updated 2013-2015)
  • data
  • apps
  • developer
  • contact

Overview

• A database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies conducted around the world (all 50 states + 220 countries)
  • site launched in 2000 after FDA Modernization Act of 1997
  • Main audience: data providers (researchers posting results), Patients and their advocates, data researchers
  • includes both clinical trials (interventional studies) and observational studies
  • provided by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
  • Federal registry and results database; public record of basic study results
  • Quick facts:
    • 376,846 studies listed --- only 48,895 have results
    • 4.5 million visitors monthly to clinicaltrials.gov
    • over half of studies are outside of US
  • most studies are registered on the website when they begin and information should be updated throughout the study
  • not all studies are required by law to be registered (FDAA 801 and the Final Rule)
• Clinical trials are grey literature (not controlled by commercial publishers so quicker publication cycle, not peer-reviewed)
  • current research of organizations and federal agencies, institutions and health care providers (quick publication process)
  • investigate effectiveness of new treatments, interventions, drugs, procedures, devices, prevention
  • not all clinical trials lead to a publication in scholarly journal
  • goal = improve health outcomes

Uses

• Guide count: 0
• Find studies that have already taken place and their results (if listed) or studies that are recruiting participants or will soon be recruiting
• Facilitate systematic review or other research analysis
• Reduce publication and outcome reporting bias (going upstream of a published article; removes bias from publication process by seeing all evidence available)
  • Help editors understand context of study results
• Helps IRB determine appropriateness of research study
• Ethical obligations to research community (list in registry and contribute to medical knowledge)
• Evidence based practice
  • Therapy, prognosis/outcome, diagnosis, harm/etiology, prevention
  • Nursing, Communication Sciences and Disorders, Allied Health, Health and Human Performance

How to Find Studies

• Boolean operators and other search features
  • quotation marks = search phrase or synonym of that phrase
  • AND/OR/NOT
    • and is implied, but can be used to separate distinct concepts
  • highlights search fields within results
• Basic Search: recruitment status + condition/disease + keyword + location
  • condition or disease (more precise), drug name, NCT number (clinical trials identifier), investigator's name, other term
• Advanced Search: condition/disease + keyword + study type + study results + recruitment status + more
  • click on field label to learn more about it. All throughout the site, they have this "guide on the side" definition helper
  • Study Type
    • Interventional study - clinical trial about intervention/treatment)
    • observational studies - assessed for health outcomes after receiving diagnosis or therapy or intervention, includes patient registries)
      • patient registries - type of observational study that collects info about patient's medical conditions or treatments to understand impact of condition or treatment in real world
    • expanded access - access to medical product not yet approved by FDA
• See Studies by Topic - add additional terms/conditions/drug interventions/dietary supplements/sponsors/locations
• See Studies by Map - visually narrow your location search and see result distributions
• From results page
  • Tabs
    • List - results list with sidebar filter
    • By Topic
    • On Map
    • Search Details tab - to see search terms to see related terms and controlled vocabulary
  • Saved column - allows you to save studies to refer to later. Button labeled saved studies in top right corner 
  • Status column - indicates whether the study is recruiting, active, not recruiting or completed
    • also indicated if completed study "has results"
    • "New" icon means it was made available in the last 30 days
  • Features
    • RSS feed subscriptions - receive current info on studies found by your search (recently added/updated)
    • download search results - for content analysis. Instructions for advanced users/researchers about downloading searches, records, and using API
• From detail page
  • Important dates
  • ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number)
  • Responsible party
  • Tabs
    • Study Details (default)
      • study description
      • study design
      • arms and interventions or groups/cohorts
      • outcome measures
      • eligibility criteria
      • contacts/locations
      • publication citations in published medical journals are listed at bottom of this tab under "More Information heading"
    • Tabular View
      • tracking information
      • descriptive information
      • recruitment information
      • administrative information
    • Results / Results Submitted / No Results Posted (submission within 1 year of completion; pending quality control review by NLM)
      • participant flow - progress of participants: started, completed, dropped out
      • baseline characteristics - data collected: demographics, study-specific measures
      • outcome measures/statistical analysis: data for each outcome and analysis of study
      • adverse events: summary of anticipated and unanticipated adverse events
      • limitations and caveats
      • administrative information

Other features

• Archive site - historical view of record including when it was updated and how it was changed. need NCT number to view its history. can also click "history of changes" link at bottom of full text/detail page view.
• XML View for data retrieval and content analysis - 

  add the URL parameter "displayxml=true" to the end of the URL to display XML in your browser. Example: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00074412?term=NCT00074412&rank=1&displayxml=true

• To find trials that have related publications and apply additional keywords/filters from there (example scenario: if a student had an assignment to show the role of clinical trials in peer-reviewed literature connected to one)
• Linking to ClinicalTrials.gov
  • To a specific study:
    • link that ends with study's unique NCT number (Ex. https://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT00004451)
• Search PubMed for articles related to trials on ClinicalTrials.gov (PubMed also managed by NLM).
  • Search: clinicaltrials.gov[si]
• Modernization initiatives 2020-2021
  • improve management of search results, format of study records, plain language information
  • support data submission: structured and unstructured data, quality control review process, workflow management
• Similar resources
  • HHS.gov listing of clinical trial registries
  • WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform
  • EU Clinical Trials Register