October 4, 2004
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ERIC introduced free, full-text PDF image documents (added to ERIC from 1993-July 2004) through this website on October 1, 2004. In the past some users experienced slow download times for the largest ERIC PDF image files. Download performance is dictated by the bandwidth of the connection and the size of the item being downloaded.
As a result, to optimize download performance for all ERIC users, the website introduced PDF files that have been significantly compressed (3:1). Since this was done by leveraging a newer version of Adobe's software (Version 5) all users must have Acrobat Reader 5 or higher installed.
While this reduction in file size will significantly reduce overall download times and improve download performance, it is important to keep in mind that even though all PDF documents are significantly smaller, some of these files are still extremely large and will require a long period of time to download (particularly on dialup connections). To gauge download time, users should always look at the file size prior to downloading.
In summary, when using the website, expect to see improvements in overall file download performance due to the reduced file sizes and more optimized Internet route, and less variation in overall performance due to the increased bandwidth available to the ERIC website.
