Transcript University of Waterloo Electronic Thesis Project

Electronic Theses and Dissertations:
Benefits, Issues, and the University of Waterloo Approach
http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/ETD/
Christine Jewell
Librarian and Chair of the UW E-thesis Project Team
[email protected]
May 2002
Benefits of ETDs
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
• Researchers
– Remote access
– Searchable metadata and full text.
• Student/Authors
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Save photocopy and binding costs
Multimedia allow wider range of expression
Remote submission
Research receives greater exposure.
Benefits of ETDs
• Librarians
– Provide increased access to research
– Save shelf space.
• Graduate Studies
– Speed up checking of submissions
– Reduce moving and handling of paper.
Issues
• Submission
– What formats should be accepted?
• Access & Distribution
– How will the ETD be provided and delivered?
• Storage & Preservation
– What is an acceptable ETD lifespan?
• Intellectual Property
– Is plagiarism facilitated?
– Publishers may refuse articles based on a thesis that is
freely available on the Web.
Submission Issues
• What formats should be accepted?
– Students create theses with a variety of
wordprocessing programs, but the graduate and
the library cannot support all varieties.
– PDF is suitable for display, but the package is
not free, it might include aspects that cannot be
checked in the graduate office or preserved on
fiche, and the reader is proprietary, hence is a
concern for future access.
Electronic Submission at UW
• A thesis must be submitted in a single Postscript file
– A PostScript file results when a document is printed to file
rather than paper; it contains nothing more nothing less
than what would appear if it were printed to paper.
– It can be checked with procedures analogous to checking a
paper thesis.
• Students wishing to submit a thesis with hyperlinks or
multimedia can submit an enhanced thesis.
– The primary PostScript submission can be supplemented
with an author created PDF version (an “enhanced thesis”)
that may include hyperlinks and multi-media as appendices.
Access & Distribution Issues
• How will the ETD be provided and
delivered?
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Should the ETDs be mounted on the Web?
What format should be used for delivery?
Can we make a link in the catalogue?
Should we maintain a local database or rely on
UMI for distribution?
Access & Distribution at UW
• ETDs are publicly accessible on the Web in PDF
– The Graduate Office converts the PostScript
submission to PDF
– The Library installs the PDF in a local database.
• Metadata submitted by the author make up the
searchable portion of the database
• The metadata record includes a link to the full text
of the thesis in PDF
• The library catalogue also links to the thesis
• The PhD theses can also be purchased from UMI.
– They are included in Dissertation Abstracts
International, UMI’s index to theses and dissertations.
Storage & Preservation Issues
• What is an acceptable ETD lifespan?
– Digital preservation may not be feasible at a
local level
– Should we accept theses that contain
components that cannot be captured on fiche?
– Should we take advantage of multimedia even
if long term preservation is problematic?
Storage & Preservation at UW
• The PDF version is backed up on a local server
– The purpose is to maintain an access copy rather than
support an electronic archive
– Supplementary enhanced theses with multimedia files
are backed up locally but are not treated to preservation
procedures or submitted to UMI.
• The PostScript is also backed up on a local server
– PostScript is an established format, unlikely to become
obsolete; as a last resort it can easily be converted to
TIFF, a format that any image reader can access.
• The content of a PostScript file can be preserved
on fiche
– It is converted to PDF then sent to UMI where it is
filmed and preserved in the NLC fiche archive.
Intellectual Property Issues
• Placing theses on the Web may provide
plagiarizing students with a convenient supply.
Do libraries have an obligation to discourage
plagiarism by limiting access?
• Some publishers have objected to ETDs that are
free on the Web, arguing that they are a form of
prior publication. Yet many publishers agree that a
publishable article is substantially different from a
thesis and cannot be considered prior publication
of the article.
Intellectual Property at UW
• Plagiarism
– It may be facilitated when material is freely available
on the Web, but the Web also facilitates detection
– Adobe software has a function to disable copying,
editing, or printing. At UW we have experimented with
this function, but have decided not to implement it.
• Publisher policies
– We advise authors to investigate the policies of
publishers in their field before they take the electronic
submission option
– If we move to mandatory electronic submission, we
will likely allow students to restrict their theses to the
UW domain.
Sources of Information on the UW Project
• UW Electronic Thesis Project homepage
http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/ETD/index.html
• University of Waterloo ETD Flowchart
http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/ETD/flowchart/
• Submitting Your Thesis Online: Course Notes
http://www.ist.uwaterloo.ca/ew/ethesis/ethesis.html
• Graduate Studies: Electronic Thesis Submissions
http://www.grad.uwaterloo.ca/General_info/Thesis_Regs/EThesis/index.html