Transcript UK Electronic Theses On-line Service (EThOS) Project infrastructure, business model and IPR Anthony Troman British Library EThOS workpackage leader.

UK Electronic Theses On-line Service (EThOS)
Project infrastructure, business model and IPR
Anthony Troman
British Library
EThOS workpackage leader
History of thesis supply in
the UK
• BL service since early ‘80s
• Vast majority of UK HE involved
• Supplied on paper or microfilm – sales & loans
• Researcher pays
But, despite dedicated staff:
• Out of date supply formats
• Long supply times
• Heavily administrative at BL & Institution –
expensive
Meaning:
• Serious decline in use of the service = lack of
awareness of UK research output
JISC drives change
JISC initiatives:
• 3 thesis projects ending late 2004 (or thereabouts)
• Funding to take findings and develop a UK thesis
service
• EThOS partnership selected to develop service
Project Aims:
• A ‘one-stop shop’ for all UK theses
• Open Access to all theses, yet financially viable and
sustainable
The Project Team
Partners
Also involved:
Workpackages
Workpackage
Lead Institution
1. Project Management
Glasgow
2. Central Hub Development
British Library
3. Interfaces
Cranfield
4. Digitisation
British Library
5. Intellectual Property Rights
Edinburgh
6. Institution Toolkit
Robert Gordon University
7. Business Model
Glasgow/British Library
8. Dissemination & advocacy
Birmingham/Warwick
Project Issues
•
•
-
500,000 UK Theses since 1700s
Stored on:
Paper – distributed across UK Institutions
Microfilm – 200,000 theses held at BL for supply
E-theses – small number held on Institutional
Repositories
• Supply to the Researcher by download or on paper
or CD/DVD
• Open Access
Infrastructure – Central Hub
EThOS
Storage Location & Format
Host institution
British Library
HEI
Host institution
Paper
theses
Microfilm
theses
Electronic
theses
digitise
digitise
Hub
harvest
EThOS
Researcher
Researcher
Electronic
download
Open
Access
Researcher
Paper
(loose leaf)
Researcher
Paper
(soft bound)
Researcher
Researcher
Paper
(hard bound)
Added Value
Requested Delivery Format
CD/DVD
Digitisation – why?
• Not many e-theses yet!
• 80% of theses ordered via BL are from last 13
years – peak usage is 2 year old theses i.e.
Researchers WANT the information held on
paper theses
• Institutions will continue to produce paper
theses for years to come
• Current service MUST be updated
• Service needs to offer content of paper theses
to attract Researchers and encourage esubmission (the ‘critical mass’)
Central Hub - modules
credit
HEI (metadata & content participation)
British Library
Thesis Unit
BL
microfilm
store
job sheet
for microfilm
thesis
returned thesis
request for
paper thesis
(email)
paper thesis
HEI Repository
microfilm thesis
HEI (metadata
only participation)
returned thesis
supply
£
Order
Management
order
(email)
metadata
& e-thesis
Digitisation
EThOS HEI funds
metadata
order
order
(already
digitised
Thesis)
digitised thesis
and metadata
update
register/login
search/results
Researcher
Interface
Storage
Finance
order
authorise
credit card
extract
physical
media
take payment
inform
download
Delivery
download
confirm despatch
Added Value
Processing
Business model options
• Author  [but if they can supply an e-version of their thesis…]
• Thesis  (charge to the Researcher based on
age/subject/source..)
• HEI  (Open Access)
- do all HEIs want to offer Open Access?
• Researcher (commercial/HE/contributor..) ?
- Download no charge (Open Access)
- Added value services (print/bind/CD) charge
• EThOS practical definition of Open Access:
- Supply of the intellectual content of a thesis is free.
- Manual work undertaken to digitise the intellectual content
from a physical format will be charged to the HEI.
- Manual work undertaken to prepare the intellectual content
into the desired supply format will be charged to the
Researcher.
- If HEIs ‘opt out’ of Open Access supply, digitisation will be
charged to the first Researcher ordering the item.
In practical terms…
• A cost recovery only service i.e. every penny raised will be
spent on the service and digitisation of UK Theses.
• Digitisation of each individual thesis must be paid for,
but once paid for the thesis will be available Open Access
to all subsequent Researchers.
• HEIs offering content Open Access via EThOS have the
choice of relationship type (see below).
• Any thesis supplied to the EThOS in e-format, or digitised
as part of a digitisation project (see below) will be supplied
Open Access to a Researcher.
• Added value services will be offered for delivery and will
be chargeable to the Researcher.
• Note that HEIs buy theses from the current service
• The proposed service will save effort at the HEI by
centralising services such as copying, packaging, etc.
Institution relationships
Open Access Sponsor:
• Sponsorship flat fee with a minimum initial commitment: 3 years (paid
annually)
• Guaranteed number of theses digitised from paper and microfilm per
annum including those ordered on-demand by Researchers
• HEI choice of additional paper/microfilm theses to digitise should flat fee
value not be delivered on-demand.
• HEI commitment to cover additional digitisation costs should the flat fee
value be exceeded i.e. if your theses are very popular!
Open Access Associate:
• No sponsorship flat fee
• Digitisation paid for on a piecemeal basis with no minimum number
guaranteed
• Monthly/quarterly invoicing for theses digitised on-demand
Associate:
• Institution supplies theses to the service – Researcher pays for digitisation
Collaborator:
• Supplies metadata only – all orders are routed to the institutions
Sponsorship
£sponsor
annual
1. The HEI credits a
sponsorship payment
to EThOS at the start
of the financial year
Su
p
ply
EThOS
Funds
Charge
HEI
Open Access
Sponsor
$
Sponsorship
Model
Re
4. The thesis is
digitised and the HEI’s
credit is reduced by
the appropriate sum
qu
t
Load
es
3. The thesis is
requested from the
HEI and is supplied for
digitising
2. A Researcher
orders one of the HEI’s
theses
Deliver
Order
EThOS
Server
Researcher
Why sponsor?
• Support Open Access
• Service is expensive to run (staff, technical
infrastructure, admin, etc.) – but cheaper than
alternatives!
• Set-up of digitisation studio and infrastructure
represents a large risk to public money
• Guarantee a secure financial basis for the service and
support Associates and Collaborators in making their
theses available
For your money:
• GUARANTEED no. theses digitised
• All monies directly support the service (no profit!)
Intellectual Property Rights
• Current system (“opt-in”) is time consuming and
administrative (i.e. expensive) involving forms from
authors and from researchers - legal recommendation
is that this continues, but that won’t allow us to meet
the expectations of a modern e-commerce aware
Researcher
• For future submissions (paper or e-) this can be
streamlined using workflow and technology
• For existing theses (500,000) seeking permissions to
digitise would be difficult and very expensive
• Many authors use 3rd party copyrighted material – BL
has edited in the past – this will not be possible in
future
IPR - proposals
Adopt an “opt-out” solution but:
• Offer a “quick take-down” option
• Ask institutions to contact as many authors as
possible
• Publicise intentions via appropriate communication
media
• Take out insurance
Note: there is no intention to abuse any IPR. The BL has
been described as a ‘trusted’ public organisation and
is not making any money out of supplying theses.
Theses are supplied in order to support UK HE and
the authors.
Benefits
Project
• A ‘one-stop shop’ for all UK theses (or all HEIs which wish to take part)
• Open Access to all theses, yet financially viable and sustainable (provided UK HE
‘buys in’). Increasing store of Open Access theses for immediate download.
Author
• Thesis made available to the world (if wanted)
HEI
• A shop window to research effort
• Options on level of involvement
• Inclusive - support for smaller institutions
• Reduction in load on Institutional Repository (where applicable)
Service Provider (British Library)
• Meets its remit as a public body
• Cost-recovery, cost-effective service
Researcher
• Easy to find and obtain information in the format required
• Clear delivery timetables and costs (if any)
UK PLC
• Demonstrates the quality of primary research going on in the UK
• Attracts overseas investment
ETDs: An American Sampler
Gail McMillan
Director, Digital Library and Archives
Virginia Polytechnic Institute &State University
JISC/CNI: York
July 6, 2006
Networked Digital Library
of Theses and Dissertations
 233
members worldwide
 94 universities,13 associations,
consortia, etc. in the United States
• 32 require ETDs
• 32 Association of Research Libraries
 13 require
• 71 Council of Graduate Schools
 29 require
http://www.ndltd.org/
Key Issues for ETD Initiatives
Getting started
2. Software
1.
 ETD-db: submission and management
 IRs: institutional repositories
3.
Accessibility
 Authors’ choices
 OAI: Open Archives Initiative
4.
Training
 Tutorials online
 ETD Guide
Copyright
6. Preservation
5.
ETD Issue: Getting Started
University of Washington

Library
• Space needs
• Institutional repository
• Initiated

Graduate School
•
•
•
•
Policy changes
Procedural adaptations
“Golden Promise” to faculty Students
Timely online availability
ETD Issue: SOFTWARE

ETD-db: submission and management
 http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ETD-db/
 http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ETD-db/developer/

IRs: institutional repositories
 http://repositories.tdl.org/handle/2249.1/1
 http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/
 http://eidr.wvu.edu/
ETD-db

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ETD-db/
• Web pages, perl scripts interact with MySQL
• Standard interface for web users, authors,
graduate school, library personnel
• Enter and manage files and metadata

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ETD-db/developer/
• Software and hardware requirements
• Instructions on downloading, installing, and
customizing scripts

Improvements coming: September 2006
• Timed release
• Merged databases
• Improved OAI
ETD-db
Hardware Requirements
VT uses a dual-processor Sun Enterprise 250 with 384 Mb of RAM,
running Solaris 2.7. 18Gb drive is allocated solely for the ETD
collection.


Web server (e.g., UNIX-based server platform)
Disk space for submissions
• VT averages 2.5 Megabytes per submission
• ETD-db is not designed to span multiple drives.

Memory for web server, database server, other tasks
Software Requirements
 Mysql
 Perl and CGI, DBI, DBD, and Tie-IxHash modules
 Web server software, e.g., Apache Web Server
Florida State University

ETD-db
• Workflow advantages for Graduate School

DigiTool (ExLibris)
• Search engine

DSpace
• Missing functionality
• Programming personnel needed
West Virginia University
http://eidr.wvu.edu/

eIDR: Electronic Institutional Document
Repository
• ETDs since 1998
• Digital library system: collections serve
entire university community
Texas Digital Library
http://repositories.tdl.org/handle/2249.1/1


More than 40 campuses, 375,000 students; over 4,000 theses
and dissertations in 2004.
ETDs with MODS
• XML based, web friendly, transportable, processible, configurable,
sufficiently descriptive without being too complex, extensible
• Why not MARC: isn’t XML based, can’t easily be output from web
forms, requires special “cataloging” knowledge and systems to
implement.
• Why not Dublin Core: insufficient specificity, doesn’t specify a
syntax and is inconsistently applied, isn’t extensible.

Manakin: enables communities and collections to establish a
unique look and feel that is distinct from the default installation
of DSpace.
ETD Issue: ACCESSIBILITY

Universities offer options
•

Authors’ make choices
•

http://di.tamu.edu/bsurratt/ETDPolicies/
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/data/
OAI: Open Archives Initiative
•
http://www.ndltd.org/join/union.en.html
ETD Access Policies at ARL Institutions:
A Preliminary Study
4% Non-exclusive right to reproduce
4% Open access only
46% Open access or withhold for limited time
42% Open access; restrict and withhold for
limited time
4% Restrict and withhold for limited time
Brian Surratt, Texas A&M
http://adt.caul.edu.au/etd2005/papers/0555Surratt.pdf
http://di.tamu.edu/bsurratt/ETDPolicies/
Snapshot of Availability May 2000-2006
2000
2001
No access
Mixed access
VT-only--scanned
VT-only born-digital
Worldwide access
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
13. If you restricted access to your ETD,
on what did you base your decision?
2004/2005
2000/2001
55%
46%
23%
20%
17%
10%
Advice of
faculty
Other
10%
Personal choice
4%
6%
3%
Advice of
others
Advice of
publisher
5%
2%
Patent pending

NDLTD develops global resource discovery services
to promote the visibility of ETDs.
•
•
•
•


http://rocky.dlib.vt.edu/~etdunion/
http://www.ndltd.org/join/union.en.html
http://alcme.oclc.org/ndltd/
http://zippo.vtls.com/cgi-bin/ndltd/chameleon
Union Catalog Project: distributed members’
collections appear as one digital library of ETDs.
Built by harvesting metadata from Open Archives of
electronic theses and dissertations
• OCLC’s NDLTD Union Catalog
 247,390 NDLTD from >60 entities (135,166 US)
Ohio Library and Information Network

Worldwide ETD Search: 162,057
• http://search.ohiolink.edu/etd/world.cgi
• Internet-available ETDs collected by OhioLINK
 OIA harvesting per NDLTD Union Catalog
 Crawls “handful of sizeable ETDs collections…which run
on ETD-db software.”
 Indexes only if full text and freely available online.

OhioLINK ETD Search: 8,968
• http://search.ohiolink.edu/etd/
Key ETD Issue: TRAINING

Tutorials



http://www.adobe.com/education/etd/tutorials.html
http://gradsch.osu.edu/Depo/ETD_Tutorial/ETD_Tutorial.pdf
ETD Guide


http://www.etdguide.org/
http://flexwiki.etdguide.org/
Online ETD Tutorial




Modular program stepping authors
through series of 5 lessons
PDF with text, images, audio, movies
2-7 interactive exercises linked to movie
demonstrations
Usability tested including compatibility
with 3rd-part screen readers
PSU: Acrobat how-to for ETD authors:
http://cac.psu.edu/etd/howto/acrobat/
Lesson 1: Read an ETD: download, browse, navigate, search within
 Lesson 2: Create a PDF File

• Use Acrobat PDFMaker within Microsoft Word
• Use Print Command in a word processing application
• Combine two or more PDF files into a single document

Lesson 3: Modify a PDF File
• Change page numbering
• Move a page
• Insert new pages; delete, rotate pages

Lesson 4: Add PDF Navigation to an ETD: bookmarks, page and
destination links

Lesson 5: Add Multimedia: movie and sound clips
ETD Guide

http://www.etdguide.org/
• UNESCO
• French, Spanish, Greek

http://flexwiki.etdguide.org/
• Share best practices
• Celebrate exemplary ETDs
ETD Issue: PUBLISHING and
COPYRIGHT
I hereby grant to [university] and its agents the nonexclusive license to archive and make accessible…in
whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter
known. I retain all ownership rights to the copyright of
the thesis, dissertation, or project report. I also retain
the right to use in future works (such as articles or
books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project
report.
Authors inadequately understand ©
Rights as copyright holders
 Responsibilities when using others
materials
 Future rights before signing publishers’
agreements

• Works for a dissertation
• Reusing materials for teaching or book
chapter
Pennsylvania State University

Promotes intellectual property rights through ETDs
•

Library teaches law seminars to graduate students
Limitations on exclusive rights http://www.etd.psu.edu/faq_pub.html
1. Others may excerpt portions of your thesis for scholarly work or
research without obtaining your permission; they must credit you
as the source. (fair use)
2. ProQuest/UMI receives authors’ permissions to sell copies.
3. Penn State has the right to make single copies of the thesis for
nonprofit purposes.

Copyright Law and the Doctoral Dissertation:
Guidelines to Your Legal Rights and Responsibilities
www.ifla.org/documents/infopol/copyright/crews.txt
Bowling Green State University

Conflict of interest
• Worldwide access
• ETD ≈ prior publication

Extended negotiations
• Graduate College
• Creative Writing Programs
 MFA: 21 of 22 do not have ETD initiatives
 Publication-dependent careers
• Scientific & Technical Communication
ETD Issue: PRESERVATION

Preservation Strategies
•
•
•
•
Dark archives
Replication w/geographic dispersion
Verification
Format migration
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.






6 Association of SouthEastern (US) Research Libraries
Adapted LOCKSS to a private, independent network using
OAI-PMH
Crawled and collected web content based on permissions
Each university cached every other universities’ ETDs
Audited file integrity
Addressed policy issues: dark archiving, removing files,
adding programs
LOCKSS tutorial http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/lockss/introduction.htm
Dark Archive In The Sunshine
State
Digital preservation repository application (open
source license) developed by Florida Center for
Library Automation with:
• Ingest functions
• Data management and dissemination
• Format normalization
 Mass format migration
 Migration on ingest
An American ETD Sampler
Thank you!
Questions? Comments?
JISC/CNI: York
Gail McMillan
July 6, 2006
Director, Digital Library and Archives
Virginia Polytechnic Institute &State University