ERIC suspends some full text over privacy concerns
I'm not sure how long this has been going on, but in trying to retrieve a report from the Education Resources Information Clearinghouse (ERIC), I received this "error" message:
Dear ERIC Community, We have currently disabled access to many ERIC full-text PDFs due to the discovery of personally identifiable information in some documents. A team is in place to check each PDF to see if it contains personally identifiable information. Due to the quality of many of the documents, a large portion of the search has to be done by hand. This will take several weeks, but our primary concern is to protect the privacy of individuals. To minimize the burden on our users, we will prioritize searching the PDFs that users request. If you would like to request a PDF to be returned online, please fill out this form, which requires only the document’s ERIC record number and your email address. Full-text PDFs will be returned on a rolling basis. We will be posting the list of newly released documents here. We are sorry for the inconvenience and want to thank you for bearing with us through this unexpected delay. The ERIC TeamIt seems like a responsible enough message and they are trying to assist researchers who need documents. It would have been nice if the message had a date stamp so we could see how long it will take ERIC to rectify this situation. I'm also wondering about the status of ERIC fiche collections. Wonder if we'll see withdrawal requests from ERIC and whether that would wind up highlighting the personal information they're trying to withdraw. Continue reading
State Agency Databases Activity Report 1/27/2013
This week at the State Agency Databases project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases: ORPHANS: AND THEN THERE WERE SIX With the pending adoption of the District of Columbia, we now have six states up for adoption:
- Florida
- Hawaii
- Kansas
- Maryland
- Minnesota
- Oklahoma
State Agency Databases Activity Report 1/21/2013
New volunteers and ongoing work marked this week at the State Agency Databases project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases. NEW PROJECT VOLUNTEERS Our project welcomed four new volunteers this week: April Sheppard - Arkansas Stephanie Martin - Indiana Mary Sauers - Nebraska (A hand off from departing volunteer Beth Goble.) Ed Sperr - South Carolina In other volunteer news, Susanne Caro adopted the Montana page. She also maintains the Utah page. SEVEN REMAINING ORPHANS With our additional volunteers, our list of orphan pages now stands at seven: District of Columbia Florida Hawaii Kansas Maryland Minnesota Oklahoma If you are interested in adopting one of these pages, please read our volunteer guide and make sure you can accept the responsibilities of a project volunteer. Then contact project coordinator Daniel Cornwall at danielcornwall@gmail.com with a statement of interest and your favorite database from the page you are adopting. DATABASE ACTIVITY For a full listing of activity over the past week, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Here are some highlights: DATABASES ADDED ARKANSAS (April Sheppard) National Register of Historic Places (AR) - Searchable by county, city, name and description. SOUTH CAROLINA (Ed Sperr) Most Wanted - is a listing with photographs of the most wanted, absconded criminals. TEXAS (Ann Ellis) Texas Higher Education Data - This site contains information organized for policymakers, parents and students, media, institutions and researchers, and educators. It includes forms, maps, charts, graphs and reports. Texas legislative issues related to higher education are included. WYOMING (Karen Kitchens) License Types and Fees - Search for current Wyoming fishing and hunting license fees by type (species) and resident or nonresident. Wyoming Game and Fish Department. Continue reading
State Agency Databases Activity Report 1/13/2013
This week we added new volunteers to the State Agency Databases project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases. We welcomed Ellen Richardson and Jennifer Ekblaw as the new documents specialists for the Massachusetts project page. ORPHAN STATES With Ellen and Jennifer's adoption of Massachusetts and the pending adoption of Montana, the project is now looking for people to adopt the following pages:
- Arkansas
- District of Columbia
- Florida
- Hawaii
- Indiana
- Kansas
- Maryland
- Minnesota
- Oklahoma
- South Carolina
- Banks in Connecticut - Lists institution, main office addresses, CEO, and regulating authority.
- Dealers, Licensed Repairers, and Licensed Recyclers only. Dept. of Revenue Services, Most Popular Downloadable Forms
- Directory of Performing & Teaching Artists - This directory provides lists of Connecticut artists (dance, traditional arts, literary arts, music, theater) willing to perform/provide specialized instruction in schools or community settings. Click on the individual discipline links for the listings.
- DMV Learner's Permit Test Appointments - Use the online Quick Service Center to schedule, reschedule and pay for the learner's permit test. Infraction Ticket Processing - You may either pay your ticket or plead Not Guilty on this website.
State Agency Databases Activity Report 1/6/2013
There was a flurry of end of year activity at the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project (http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases) over the last few weeks, including our annual compilation of usage statistics. We also had the sad duty of returning 11 pages to orphan status as they were not updated in 2012. But first, the good news! All together, state project pages were visited 201,084 times in 2012. This is nearly triple the number of visits in 2011. Our subject pages also got about three times more visits in 2012, logging 28,131 visits. The most popular state page was Alaska, followed closely by Missouri. The Prisoner Locater page continued in its number one spot among subject pages, but Lynn McClelland's Healthcare Practitioner pages were a close second. The full statistics worksheet listing individual stats for all states and subject pages is linked from our main project page under 2012 Usage Stats. DATABASE ACTIVITY For a full listing of all changes to project pages during the last two weeks, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs14d. Below are some highlights of activity. DATABASES ADDED MICHIGAN (Michael McDonnell) Michigan Healthcare Help - This site provides information on where to find free or inexpensive health related services. Included are links to free clinics, mental health services, dental care, prescription drug programs, family planning, and cancer screening and treatment services. You can also find assistance with Medicaid enrollment here. MISSOURI (Annie Moots) Field Guide - What plant or animal is that? - Search the database of plants, animals and mushrooms found in Missouri. OHIO (Audrey Hall) Interest Calculator - Select tax type, amount due, and payment date to calculate interest. WASHINGTON (Marilyn Von Seggern) Children's Safe Products Act Reports Database - Beginning in August 2012, manufacturers of children's products must report to Dept. of Ecology if their products contain toxic chemicals such as lead, cadmium and phthalates. The Reporting List of Chemicals of High Concern to Children can be searched by chemical, company, or product. NEW ORPHANS FOR 2013 Some bad news for the project, but potentially good news for you. Since 2011, our project guidelines state that we will terminate volunteers who have not documented link checks or updated their pages in the past calendar year. State pages meeting that condition are put out for adoption the following January. So here is our new orphan list for 2013:
- Arkansas
- District of Columbia
- Florida
- Hawaii
- Indiana
- Kansas
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Minnesota
- Montana
- Oklahoma
- South Carolina
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