MATHDI Database
Mathematical Didactics 1976 - present

DIRECTORY

The following HELP messages are available to obtain information on the MATHDI Database:

Content

You are currently in the MATHDI Database. This database contains records for the documents covered by

ZDM, Zentralblatt für Didaktik der Mathematik / International Reviews on Mathematical Education

The present edition contains the information of those documents the reviews of which were printed in the volumes of Zentralblatt für Didaktik der Mathematik (1976 - present).

MATHDI (Mathematical Didactics), the online version of Zentralblatt für Didaktik der Mathematik (ZDM), is a comprehensive bibliographic database covering literature in mathematical education and related fields. All relevant journals, approximately 500, and other serials published worldwide are included in MATHDI. Citations, the majority with abstracts, are in English.

Subject Coverage

- Mathematics Teaching from Elementary School to University and Adult education

- Elementary Mathematics and Applications

- Research in the Science of Mathematical Didactics

- Computer Science Education and Information Technology

- Basic Pedagogical and Psychological Issues for Education in Mathematics

For a summary of all information available by this HELP facility please see the DIRECTORY of this document.

Software

This database front end uses a new search engine developed by Cellule MathDoc. Versions of this software are available for installation on a local (institutional) server.

Help Desk

The database MATHDI is provided with an extended HELP system. A summary of all information available can be found in the DIRECTORY.

If you need additional HELP you can correspond with any of the following addresses: 

         Zentralblatt für Didaktik der Mathematik, ZDM
         Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe
         Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1
         D-76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen
         Phone    (+49) 07247 808 240
         FAX      (+49) 07247 808 461
         e-mail   GK@fiz-karlsruhe.de

Display-Fields

The DISPLAY fields which you may see in records of MATHDI Database are summarized below.

If you wish more detailed information on these database fields please click on the special field.

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

Search-Fields

The searchable fields of the database MATHDI which are displayed in the search menu are listed below.

If you wish more detailed information on these database fields please click on the special field.

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

Display-Formats

Search results in MATHDI are displayed online in packages of 10 (default) to 50 hits. The default display format is in enhanced HTML-form, which improve the readability but give no display of formulas.

Much more comfortable is the possible output with the TeX- or postscript-viewer. These possibilies suppose that the viewers are installed on your client.

If you wish more detailed information on the displayed database fields please go to the Display Fields.

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

Proximity

A simple form of proximity searching is available for this database, in the following text fields: BI, TI, SO. A group of consecutive words may be searched for by selecting "contains the expression".

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

TeX

The description of mathematical contents within the records of MATHDI database requires the use of a formatting language which is capable of presenting special characters, formulae and formatting instructions. The most widely used and best known language for these purposes is TeX. Therefore TeX is used in the encoding of the data for MATHDI. However, a TeX-implementation on your computer is not a necessary condition for MATHDI Database to run.

But if high output quality is asked for, if it is desired to get output in a form similar to the printed version of Zentralblatt für Didaktik der Mathematik, then viewers for DVI or PostScript should be available on the system.

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

BI - Basic Index

The Basic Index is the main tool in the subject search of MATHDI Database as a bibliographic text-oriented database.

This index contain all single words of the fields describing the contents of the document.

The following fields are included in the Basic Index:

In order to avoid ballast in this index, frequently used words (called stopwords) without intrinsic meaning in a mathematical subject search have been skipped in the generation of the basic index.

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

AU - Author(s), Editors

Author names have been implemented in a form common to all STN databases, i.e. last name, first name, middle name. First and middle names can or cannot be abbreviated. When searching for an author's name, it is recommended to use only the first initial. You will get all forms of the first names, because the system adds automatically a truncation symbol. Thus, the following forms of implementation are possible: Examples: 

  Friedrich Wilhelm Mahle    as    Mahle
                                   Mahle, F.
                                   Mahle, F. W.
                                   Mahle, Friedrich
                                   Mahle, Friedrich W.
                                   Mahle, Friedrich Wilhelm
  and as an Editor (e.g.)          Mahle, Friedrich W. (ed.)

The recommended search form is: 

                                   Mahle, F

The system will automatically search for 

                                   Mahle, F*

Names containing a preposition (von, van), article (le), combination of article and preposition (du, vander), relationships or attributes (Fitz, Mac, Jun., III) have the format common to their country of origin. It is therefore recommended to search for names with the supplements placed in front of the name and after the name. 

     Document                            Database Record
     
     Peter von der Muehl         as      Muehl, Peter von der
     Fritz von Heyden (DE)       as      Heyden, Fritz von
     Fritz Von Heyden (US)       as      Von Heyden, Fritz
     A. De L'Aigle               as      L'Aigle, A de
     C. M. Di Bari               as      Di Bari, C.M.
     Michel Del Pedro            as      Del Pedro, Michel
     L. C. MacLean               as      MacLean, L.C.
     John Fitz Gerald            as      Fitz Gerald, John
     A. Miller jun.              as      Miller, A.jun.

The publisher is also given in the AU field, and is listed with the supplement (ed.). 

     Edited by H. Waadeland      as     Waadeland, H.(ed.)
     Editor Anita K. Jones       as     Jones, Anita K.(ed.)

Names in kyrillic letters have been transcribed according to the ISO standard. In some cases this transliteration will differ from that one on the translated document or in the western journal. In that case we include the different form of spelling as an author reference displayed in braces in the author field.

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

TI - Title

The title of the original document is not only contained in the basic index, but also in a special field TI. This is useful in those cases in which users want to limit his search to title words.

The title is given in original language. In case of original title not in English there is also given an English translation.

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

LA - Language

The complete English word for each language can be searched.

List of occuring languages 

  Afrikaans     Azerbaijani   Arabic
  Bulgarian     Byelorussian
  Catalan       Chinese       Croatian      Czech
  Danish        Dutch  
  English       Esperanto     Estonian
  Finnish       French
  Georgian      German        Greek
  Hungarian
  Italian
  Japanese
  Korean
  Latin         Latvian       Lithuanian
  Macedonian    Malay
  Norwegian
  Persian       Polish        Portuguese
  Romanian      Russian
  Serbian       Serbo-Croat   Slovak        Slovenian     Spanish
  Swedish
  Turkish
  Ukrainian
  Vietnamese

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

SO - Source

This field contains a great part of the bibliographic information and information about meetings.

The source field contains the following searchable data:

All data are parsed into single words and can be searched as text.

Examples: 

  Journal volume        Source contains the expression : ANN INST FOURIER 45
  Books of a publisher  Source contains the expression : SPRINGER VERLAG 
  Document of an ISBN   Source contains the expression : ISBN 3 540 53342 7

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

PY - Publication Year

The publication year is always written in 4 digits.

You may specify a period from 1 to 5 years entering the first and last year of the period. The second box may stay empty if only one year is specified. No entry is necessary for the whole period of the database.

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

DT - Document type

By means of document type it is possible to separate the main types of publication: Journal article, book, conference article, etc.

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

CC - Classification Code and Text

All Documents in MATHDI are indexed by codes from the ZDM classification, which is a specific classification for the field mathematics education.

A list of codes and the corresponding text is available here.

The corresponding text is included in the Basic Index.

It is also possible to search for the main fields (higher levels) of the classification if you use the first two digits or the first two digits followed by a character in combination with the truncation symbol.

Examples: 

      95K   searches all papers to  "Stochastics"
      95K43    searches all papers to  "descriptive statistics at lower secondary"

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

UT - Keywords (ST, STDE)

In all cases where the classification is not specific enough there are added English and German keywords for a detailed description of the topics . Since we index all literature with English and German keywords, it is possible to search only in English or German for the selection of papers and reviews in other languages. The display fields ST (Special terms) and STDE are only searchable in the Basic Index.

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

AB - Review / Abstracts

The description of a document by a review should

The preferred language for the reviews is English, but reviews in French, German or Spanish will also be accepted.

The review text (of those languages) is inverted in the Basic Index (BI).

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

Truncation

The (right) truncation symbol * is used to retrieve various forms of your search terms. In the author search the truncation is used automatically.

Left truncation is not available.

For other topics please go to the DIRECTORY.

Advanced search

Introduction

In this mode, automatic truncation of author names is not available.
The form fields can contain a boolean expression buitl with the following operators: & (and), ^ (and not), these two operators having equal priority (highest), | (or) (lower priority). 

    a | b & c ==> a | (b & c)
The evaluation order may be changed by using parentheses.

Inter-field operators (selected through the form's menus) are evaluated from left to right without any priority.
The expression: 

 Field_A * Field_B * Field_C * Field_D
is always evaluated as: 
 ((Field_A * Field_B) * Field_C) * Field_D
"*" being one the operators and, or, and not.

Examples
Author : Wiles,*
or Author : Taylor,*
and Title : Fermat

will find items:

  1. having in the Author field Taylor or Wiles
  2. having the word Fermat in the title field.
But:
Title : Fermat
and Author : Wiles,*
or Author : Taylor,*

will find :

  1. items with the word Fermat in the title field and authored by Wiles
  2. plus items authored by Taylor.
The first request may also be entered as follows:
Author : Wiles,* | Taylor,*
and Title : Fermat

The command language allows more complex queries.

Command language

This mode allows complex boolean queries.

The searchable field names are (lowercase):
Name Description
an Accession number: MATHDI item number
au Author name
bi Basic index
cc Ed. Mathematical Subject Classification Code
dt Document type
la Language
py Publication year
so Source (Journal, Publisher...)
ti Title words

Examples
cc = 58g* & an = 885* All about section "58G" in volume 885
cc = 58g* & py = 1996:1998 All about section "58G" for years 1996 to 1998
au = (bender,* ^ canfield,*) The author is Bender, without Canfield
au = (bender,* ^ canfield,*) | au = (canfield,* ^ bender,*) The author is Bender or Canfield, but not both
au = ((bender,* ^ canfield,*) | (canfield,* ^ bender,*)) same query as above
au = ((bender,* ^ canfield,*) | (canfield,* ^ bender,*)) & py >= 1997 same query, but the item has been published after 1996
ti = (riemann* & (manifold* | variete*)) 
ti = riemann* & manifold*  Syntax error. The correct query is: ti = (riemann* & manifold*)
ti = riemann* manifold*  Expression search: will find "riemannian manifold", "riemannian manifolds", etc...
bi = (bose einstein | einstein bose)  ...
ti = (fermi dirac ^ bose einstein)  ...

Formal Syntax 

   find_expression ::= field_expression
                   ::= find_expression bool_op field_expression

   bool_op ::= '&' | '|' | '^'

   field_expression ::= name '=' '(' bool_expr ')'
                    ::= name rel_op string
                    ::= name '=' string ':' string
                    ::= '(' find_expression ')'

   rel_op ::= '<' | '<=' | '>' | '>='

   bool_expr ::= term
             ::= bool_expr '|' term

   term ::= factor
        ::= term '&' factor
        ::= term '^' factor

   factor ::= string
          ::= '(' bool_expr ')'

Examples:
  au = berard*
  au = (berard* & besson*)
  au = (berard* | (besson* & gallot*))
  au = (berard* | webb*) ^ ti = rieman* manifold*