Analysis of ERIC’s 2025 Revised Indexing Policy: Impact on Educators’ Access to the Scholarly Record

Introduction: This study investigates the implications of the Education Resources Information Center’s (ERIC’s) 2025 journal deselection process following significant budget cuts and administrative restructuring under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The research aims to understand what the changes are and if these changes will affect librarians’ and libraries’ ability to provide access to the education practitioners who rely upon it. Methods: We systematically compared ERIC’s November 2024 and June 2025 journal lists to analyze the rate of journal deselection and characteristics of the deselected journals, including scope, open access (OA) status, and country of origin. Results: The analysis reveals a 4.8% reduction in indexed journals, the introduction of an ambiguous “inactive” status, and the unexplained removal and addition of several titles. Notably, many deselected journals were still actively publishing or had been indexed earlier in the year. The data show a disproportionate impact on OA journals and those focused on language teaching. Geographic diversity also declined. Discussion & Conclusion: These findings suggest that the ERIC deselection process lacked transparency and consistency, leading to the unexplained removal of many actively publishing journals. This not only undermines ERIC’s reliability as a steward of the scholarly record but also raises concerns among librarians about its ability to provide high-quality, free research literature to education practitioners.