Housed at the University of Maryland, the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation is one of 16 subject-oriented clearinghouses operated by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Since its inception in 1966, the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) has become one of the major bibliographic databases in the world. ERIC has acquired, reviewed, and processed more than one million citations that policy makers, program planners, researchers, and other users can readily identify and obtain. ERIC as a system is now widely recognized as the central source in the education and social science fields. The Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation collects information of particular interest to evaluation practitioners and researchers.