Tips and Instructions

The KERA Database Search Engine features a bibliographic database of over 2000 articles and books relating to the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act and associated topics. These bibliographic entries are fully searchable by author, title, year of publication, general keyword, and abstract. Each category can be searched by keyword and substring matching is allowed. For example, to search for a particular author, you might enter the author's last name in the "Author" box of the search engine, as in this example:

Please note that it is generally wise to use the last name of the author only, as many of the entries are listed by last name only

Or, you can narrow your search down by adding additional criteria in your search. For example, here we see a search that would only return articles written by an author with the first or last name "May" in 1994:

You might also wish to do a general keyword search, which would search for keywords and substrings in every category. For example, if you wanted to search for all articles relating to school-based decision making, you might enter the following:

If you wish to search for an exact phrase rather than by keywords, check the "Exact Phrase" button at the bottom of the form. For example, the following search will return articles with the phrase "high school" in the title. Without the "Exact Phrase" box checked, it would return articles with "high" and "school" in the title as keywords:

Once you've entered your search criteria, simply press the button.

Please note that the search generally takes 30 seconds to a minute to process, with time varying during peak usage periods and with complex searches.

This will return a set of bibliographic entries, each in the following basic format:

Not all of the entries that are returned to you will match this exact format, as some entries will have more information than others (many entries, for example, do not have abstracts).

Please note that all articles, such as this one, with an ERIC document number (in this case ED378667) are available from the Appalachia Educational Laboratory in Charleston, WV.

After viewing the bibliographic entries that your search has returned, you may wish to narrow your search further or submit a new search. To return to the search engine, simply use your browser's "Back" button to return to the form, enter whatever new criteria you wish, and press the "Submit These Search Parameters" button again.

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