Transcript How the library can best serve the academic research

Electronic Theses and Dissertations:
Legal, Policy, Administrative Issues
Felix N Ubogu
University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg
ETD Training Workshop, UFH, 24 June 2008
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Why ETDS?
• Electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) are now
becoming the norm
• Increased national and international visibility of the
institution
• Students creating ETDs can use more creative
approaches than just ink on paper, including audio,
video, hypertext, multimedia and hypermedia.
• Make available access to materials that have not
been available through traditional publishing
alternatives
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Web sites
• OpenDOAR is an authoritative directory of
academic open access repositories
• http://www.opendoar.org/countrylist.php
• NDLTD Awards
• http://www.ndltd.org/awards/scirusawards20
08.en.html
• Usage Statistics
– http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/data/somefacts.ht
ml
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Stakeholders
• Senior Management (Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Research or Academic)
• Registrar
• Deans
• Director of Post Graduate Studies
• Registry and Administration staff (Registrar, Legal
Officer, Archives Manager)
• IT staff (Director)
• Library staff (Director/UL, Library IT staff, Cataloguing
staff)
• Academic staff
• Postgraduate Students
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Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
• Key forms - patents, copyrights, designs,
trademarks and patterns, and trade secrets.
• IPR - one of the key issues raised in institutions
• Often a significant barrier to an ETD programme
• Copyright is a property: bought, sold, licensed, etc
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IPR: Copyright
Applies to work that is
• Original
• Fixed in some way – printed, written, recorded in
any form
• It must be created by an author from a country
which recognizes copyright
• National Copyright laws derive from the Berne
Convention
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Rights/Responsibilities chain for ETDs
Author (student)
Institution
Repository
Author rights/responsibilities
Author (Student)
Rights
• Owns Copyright
• Economic rights: distribution right and first sale
doctrine
• Moral rights
Responsibilities
• Observe norms and standards
• Security necessary
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Institutional rights/responsibilities
Institution
• Rights granted or assigned
Rights
• Permit use, display, copying, and distribution of the
full-texts
• “derivative works” in the form of abstracts
• Create and distribute metadata
Responsibilities
• adequate review and authentication of TDs
• Embargo
• copyright statement
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Repository responsibilities
Repository
• Responsibilities
• Remove or obscure copyrighted
• Protect against unauthorized use by third parties of
this information.
• Allow metadata harvesting
• Permission for online access
• Safeguard against third-party copyright material being
inadvertently deposited
• Obtain permission for copying for the purposes of
preservation; for future migration; for emulation for the
purposes of preservation.
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Institutional Requirements for e- theses
and dissertations (1)
Requirements
Content
UFH’s Current
Situation
Clarification of
which works will UFH requires
successful masters and
be included Masters (minidoctoral candidates to
dissertation)
submit print and digital
and Doctoral
copies (General
(thesis) works?
Prospectus 2008,
17.6.6)
Practice
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Institutional Requirements for e- theses
and dissertations (2)
Regulations
Update institutional
regulations for e-TD
The General
Prospectus 2008 has
been updated.
Guidelines
Would the guidelines
currently used by each faculty
for producing theses and
dissertations apply when
producing electronic
(think about this)
versions? Reconcile various
practices where they exist.
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Institutional Requirements for e- theses and
dissertations (3)
Copyright
Theses and dissertations are usually protected
under the national copyright act. South African
TDs are protected under the
Copyright Act No. 98 of 1978
Copyright generally belongs to the author but
this ownership may be assigned by written
agreement either specifically or as part of an
undertaking between the researcher and the
awarding institution when the course of
research was entered upon.
Third-party copyright material being held in the
TD: authors are required to seek permissions
from any third-party copyright owners.
Where permissions are not forthcoming authors
such materials are not included in the digital
version.
A comprehensive Declaration document
(deposit licence agreement) is usually signed
by students (reconcile with Intellectual Property
Policy document if it exists). Such declaration
should cover the repository’s rights and
responsibilities and the re-use terms and
conditions.
UFH has the right to publish the
dissertation or thesis in its
original or an amended form
six months after the award of
the degree, it has the right to
make and distribute digital,
facsimile or microform copies
of the dissertation or thesis, to
input the particulars on a
bibliographical database, to
include the work in summary
form in the University’s
Catalogue of Theses and
Dissertations, to allow it to be
included in Dissertation or
Theses Abstracts International
and to be distributed by the
latter (University Microfilms
International).
Need to include other
repositories.
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Institutional Requirements for e- theses
and dissertations (4)
Images
The author is responsible for
providing copyright permission
and must provide written
evidence. Where no evidence of
permission is available, the
image is removed from the digital
version of the thesis but remain
in the printed version.
Document Format
The PDF format is the most used
format. Others include XML,
video files, jpeg, etc
Hard copy vs. ecopy
Mechanisms must be found to
ensure that the hardcopy and the
electronic version are one and
the same thing.
(make explicit in
Declaration form)
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Institutional Requirements for e- theses
and dissertations (5)
Backup
This will be in line with existing procedures for
backing up digital records in the University.
Membership of the
Networked Digital Library of
Theses and Dissertations
(NDLTD)
The University should become a member of the
Networked Digital Library of Theses and
Dissertations (NDLTD) project to benefit from
the wide range of research available and keep
abreast of worldwide ETD initiatives.
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Questions
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