New Sorting Options for ERIC Search Results

September 17, 2006

Using the search technology implemented in July 2006, ERIC has introduced user options for sorting search results and has greatly enhanced the default sort based on the relevance of identified records. Sort options are:

Author - ascending alphabetical order by last name
Publication date - descending order (most recent first)
Source (i.e., journal citation or contributing institution) - ascending alphabetical order
Relevance - default sort

In the default sort, relevance is determined by the number of search terms found in the record and the uniqueness of the term in the database. Relevance sorting gives preference to newer materials having the same relevance score.

The July 2006 search engine update introduced faster search performance, exact matching of a word or an acronym without the use of quotes, and enhanced author searches allowing the use of first or middle initials.