Fast and comfortable access to literature in mathematics education

1. Introduction

There has been a substantial increase in publications dealing with research in mathematical education in general and in particular on experiments in various countries, new pedagogical concepts and insights, topics, and teaching concepts.

One of the features of the growth is the increasing number of

Educational professionals like other scientists are thus faced with the problem:

How to extract those items which they need for their own work?

FIZ Karlsruhe, Germany, (Fachinformationszentrum) offers the following services:

2.Printed abstracting service in mathematics education: ZDM


ZDM: Zentralblatt für Didaktik der Mathematik
(International Reviews on Mathematical Education)
is an information and abstract journal in the field of mathematical and computer education, from elementary level to teacher’s training and adult education.

This well established journal started in 1968 within the field of mathematical education and expanded its scope 1987 to computer science education.

The journal appears every two months, each issue containing

Documentation

The main part of ZDM is dedicated to documentation.
The documentation section is an abstract service and reference tool providing ready access to worldwide publications on topics such as

The information presented is extracted from all relevant documents. This includes

The publications are announced in the documentation section by bibliographic data and abstracts mostly in English and sometimes in French or German.

The bibliographic part of ZDM is followed by an index section, facilitating pinpointed retrieval of documents according to different criteria:

Subject coverage of covered literature:

What is the advantage of using ZDM?

This abstracting service enables specialists in mathematics education to keep up with the literature in their subject by providintg them with a manageable source of information on current developments, controversies and advances, selected from virtually the whole of the international literature.

In addition ZDM assists in maximizing the use of the time scholars have available for reading. They spend their available reading time scanning core journals and can then use abstracting services covering their field to identify other papers, published in less familiar journals or in journals published abroad, which will be of relevance to their research.

3. Online Database in mathematical education: MATHDI

MATHDI (Mathematical Didactics) is the ZDM electronic database.

It is produced, designed and offered by FIZ Karlsruhe (Fachinformationszentrum) and is available worldwide via STN International.

It provides the quickest and most convenient access to literature in mathematics education and computer science education.

It contains all literature reviewed in ZDM since 1976 totalling 69.000 references (31.12.1996). Some 4.500 items are added each year. MATHDI aims at:

If one needs an overview on relevant scholarly publications for writing an article, delivering a conference speech or approaching a new working field the search in MATHDI will help to be up to date.

Especially with the computer online search the searcher has almost unlimited flexibility to tailor the results to precise specifications, to be as broad or as narrow as desired, to include or exclude certain factors, or to combine concepts.

MATHDI online is easily and quickly accessible from all over the world via all telecommunication networks (e.g. DATEX.P, WIN/IXI, DATAPAC; Radio Austria, TELENET; TYMNET etc.), as well as via Internet.

MATHDI database on STN International is available in Europe/World via FIZ Karlsruhe (e-mail: GK@fiz-karlsruhe.de), in North America via CAS Columbus/Ohio ( e-mail:help@cas.org)

On Internet MATHDI is offered through the World Wide Web via the EMIS service of the European Mathematical Society (EMS).

4. CD-ROM MATHDI

MATHDI is also available through a CD-ROM.

This newer electronic manifestation of scholarly information, offers the following attractive features:

CD-ROM allows to search with a command language (retrieval language used on the STN International host) or with an independent menu system.

Now, for the first time, one can have instant access, every hour of the day, to literature about mathematics education throughout the world.

The CD-ROM MATHDI is the most appropriate medium of output for scholars, when they need information on their desk, their working place or directly on their computer. It is also comfortable in libraries for students use.

For more information:

Gerhard König
Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe
D- 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen

e-mail: GK@fiz-karlsruhe.de


Gerhard König

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