This posting lists electronic theses and dissertation archives at ARL libraries that were not included in the prior "ETD Policies and Procedures at ARL Institutions" posting. The archives listed here do not include substantial ETD policy and procedure information; however, some sites provide links to more limited supporting information, such as formatting guidelines. In some cases, archives are identified here for institutions included in the prior posting because the ETD site in that posting did not include an archive link. To get a complete list of ETD archives, consult both postings. In some cases, ARL libraries do not separate out ETDs as a separate material type listing (e.g. DSpace community). Such integrated archives are not included here.
Month: July 2005
One-Page Open Access Resources Handout
Need a very short (one-page) handout that identifies a few key open access resources? My OA co-presenter (Sara Ranger) and I did, so we created one. It’s at:
http://www.escholarlypub.com/cwb/OAHandout.pdf
It’s available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License.
Obviously, a number of very valuable resources had to be omitted, but, hopefully, users can employ these core resources to discover them.
ETD Policies and Procedures at ARL Institutions
What electronic theses and dissertation (ETD) policies and procedures are in use in major North American research institutions?
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) currently has 123 member libraries in the US and Canada. Below is a list of Web sites at ARL institutions that provide significant information about these institutions’ ETD policies and procedures. Some of these Web pages are on the library’s Website; some are on other university components’ Websites. This list was complied by a quick look at ARL libraries’ home pages, supplemented by limited institution-specific Google searching. Since these Websites can be difficult to find, this is likely to be partial list of relevant Websites. Please leave information about other relevant Websites in comments.
- Brigham Young University
- Case Western Reserve University
- Florida State University
- George Washington University
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- Kent State University
- North Carolina State University
- Ohio State University
- Southern Illinois University
- Texas A&M University
- Texas Tech University
- University at Buffalo
- University of British Columbia
- University of Cincinnati
- University of Georgia
- The University of Iowa
- University of Kentucky
- University of Manitoba
- University of Maryland
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- University of Notre Dame
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Saskatchewan
- University of Tennessee
- University of Texas, Austin
- University of Waterloo
- Vanderbilt University
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog Update (7/18/05)
The biweekly update of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog (SEPW) is now available, which provides brief information on 15 new journal issues and other resources. Especially interesting are: Cataloging And Organizing Digital Resources: A How-to-Do-It Manual For Librarians, "The Dramatic Growth of Open Access: Implications and Opportunities for Resource Sharing," International Yearbook of Library and Information Management 2004-2005: Scholarly Publishing in an Electronic Era, "The Next Information Revolution—How Open Access Will Transform Scholarly Communications," and the latest issue of Serials: The Journal for the Serials Community.
BMC’s Impact Factors: Elsevier’s Take and Reactions to It
A growing body of research suggests that open access may increase the impact of scholarly literature (see Steve Hitchcock’s "Effect of Open Access and Downloads ("Hits") on Citation Impact: A Bibliography of Studies"). Consequently, "impact factors" play an important part in the ongoing dialog about the desirability of the open access model.
On June 23, 2005, BioMed Central issued a press release entitled "Open Access Journals Get Impressive Impact Factors" that discussed the impact factors for their journals. You can consult the press release for the details, but the essence of it was expressed in this quote from Matthew Cockerill, Director of Operations at BioMed Central:
These latest impact factors show that BioMed Central’s Open Access journals have joined the mainstream of science publishing, and can compete with traditional journals on their own terms. The impact factors also demonstrate one of the key benefits that Open Access offers authors: high visibility and, as a result, a high rate of citation.
On July 8, 2005, Tony McSean, Director of Library Relations for Elsevier, sent an e-mail message to SPARC-OAForum@arl.org "(OA and Impressive Impact Factors—Non Propter Hoc") that presented Elsevier’s analysis of the BMC data, putting it "into context with those of the major subscription-based publishers." Again, I would encourage you to read this analysis. The gist of the argument is as follows:
This comparison with four major STM publishers demonstrates that BMC’s overall IF results are unremarkable, and that they certainly do not provide evidence to support the common assertion that the open access publishing model increases impact factor scores.
My reaction was as follows.
These interesting observations do not appear to account for one difference between BMC journals and the journals of other publishers: their age. Well-established, older journals are more likely to have attained the credibility required for high IFs than newer ones (if they ever will attain such credibility).
Moreover, there is another difference: BMC journals are primarily e-journals, not print journals with derivative electronic counterparts. Although true e-journals have gained significant ground, I suspect that they still start out with a steeper hill to climb credibility-wise than traditional print journals.
Third, since it involves paying a fee, the author-pays model requires a higher motivation on the part of the author to publish in such journals, likely leading to a smaller pool of potential authors. To obtain high journal IFs, these had better be good authors. And, for good authors to publish in such journals, they must hold them in high regard because they have other alternatives.
So, if this analysis is correct, for BMC journals to have attained "unremarkable" IFs is a notable accomplishment because they have attained parity with conventional journals that have some significant advantages.
Earlier in the day, Dr. David Goodman, Associate Professor of the Palmer School of Library and Information Science, commented (unbeknownst to me since I read the list in digest form):
1/ I doubt anyone is contending that at this point any of the
BMC titles are better than the best titles from other publishers. The point is that they are at least as good as the average, and the best of them well above average. For a new publisher, that is a major accomplishment—and one that initially seemed rather doubtful. . . .2/ Normally, publishing in a relative obscure and newly founded journal would come at some disadvantage to the author, regardless of how the journal was financed. . . .
3/ You can’t judge OA advantage from IF alone. IF refers to journals, OA advantage refers to individual articles. The most convincing studies on OA advantage are those with paired comparisons of articles, as Stevan Harnad has explained in detail.
4/ Most of the BMC titles, the ones beginning with the BMC journal of…, are OA completely. For the ones with Toll Access reviews etc., there is obviously much less availability of those portions than the OA primary research, so I doubt the usual review journal effect applies to the same extent as usual.
On July 9, 2005, Matt Cockerill sent a rebuttal to the SPARC-OAForum that said in part:
Firstly, the statistics you give are based on the set of journals that have ISI impact factors (in fact, they cover only journals which had 2003 Impact Factors). . . . Many of BioMed Central’s best journals are not yet tracked by ISI.
Secondly, comparing the percentage of Impact Factors going up or down does not seem a particularly meaningful metric. What is important, surely, is the actual value of the Impact Factor (relative to others in the field). In that regard, BioMed Central titles have done extremely well, and several are close to the top of their disciplines. . . .
Thirdly, you raise the point that review articles can boost a journal’s Impact Factor, and that many journals publish review articles specifically with the intention of improving their Impact Factor. This is certainly true, but of BioMed Central’s 130+ journals, all but six are online research journals, and publish virtually no review articles whatsoever. . . .
No reply yet from Elsevier, but, whether there is or not, I’m sure that we have not heard the last of the "impact factor" argument.
Stevan Harnad has made it clear that what he calls the "journal-affordability problem" is not the focus of open access (this is perhaps best expressed in Harnad et al.’s "The Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold Roads to Open Access"). The real issue is the "research article access/impact problem":
Merely to do the research and then put your findings in a desk drawer is no better than not doing the research at all. Researchers must submit their research to peer review and then "publish or perish," so others can use and apply their findings. But getting findings peer-reviewed and published is not enough either. Other researchers must find the findings useful, as proved by their actually using and citing them. And to be able to use and cite them, they must first be able to access them. That is the research article access/impact problem.
To see that the journal-affordability problem and the article access/impact problem are not the same one need only note that even if all 24,000 peer-reviewed research journals were sold to universities at cost (i.e., with not a penny of profit) it would still be true that almost no university has anywhere near enough money to afford all or even most of the 24,000 journals, even at minimal access-tolls (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/arlbin/arl.cgi?task=setuprank). Hence, it would remain true even then that not all would-be users could access all of the yearly 2.5 million articles, and hence that that potential research impact would continue to be lost.
So although the two problems are connected (lower journal prices would indeed generate somewhat more access), solving the journal-affordability problem does not solve the research access/impact problem.
Of course, there are different views of open access, but, for the moment, let’s say that this view is the prevailing one and that this is the most compelling argument to win the hearts and minds of scholars for open access. Open access will rise or fall based on its demonstrated ability to significantly boost impact factors, and the battle to prove or disprove this effect will be fierce indeed.
Electronic Theses and Dissertations: A Bibliography
Update: See Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography, Version 2 for the latest ETD bibliography.
This bibliography presents selected English-language articles, conference papers, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). It emphasizes formally published works. Where possible, links are provided to sources that are freely available on the Internet.
Allard, Suzie. "7th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD 2004): Distributing Knowledge Worldwide through Better Scholarly Communication, 3-5 June 2004, Lexington, Kentucky, USA." D-Lib Magazine 10, no. 9 (2004).
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september04/allard/09allard.html
Andrew, Theo. Intellectual Property and Electronic Theses. London: JISC, 2004.
http://www.thesesalive.ac.uk/archive/IP_etheses.pdf
———. "Theses Alive!: An E-Theses Management System for the UK." (2004).
http://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/423?mode=simple
Bakelli, Yahia, and Sabrina Benrahmoun. "Long-Term Preservation of Electronic Theses and Dissertations in Algeria." Libri 53, no. 4 (2003): 254-261.
Balile, Deodatus. "Africa to Get Online Research Database." SciDev.Net, 23 October 2003.
http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=1068&language=1
Bevan, Simon J. "Electronic Thesis Development at Cranfield University." Program: Electronic Library & Information Systems 39, no. 2 (2005): 100-111.
Chang, Sheau-Hwang. "Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD)." OCLC Systems & Services 18, no. 3 (2002): 109-111.
Copeland, Susan, and Andrew Penman. "The Development and Promotion of Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) within the UK." New Review of Information Networking 10, no. 1 (2004): 19-32.
Cox, Fannie M, and Mary Barbosa-Jerez. "Gleanings from the 7th International Symposium on Electronic Thesis and Dissertations." Library Hi Tech News 21, no. 8 (2004): 10-12.
Douglas, Kimberly. "Report on the Fourth Annual Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations." Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science & Technology 28, no. 1 (2001): 27-28.
http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Oct-01/douglas.html
Edminster, Jude, and Joe Moxley. "Graduate Education and the Evolving Genre of Electronic Theses and Dissertations." Computers and Composition 19, no. 1 (2002): 89-104.
El-Bayoumi, Janice, and Lisa Charlong. "The University of New Brunswick’s Pilot for an Electronic Theses and Dissertation Program." In Proceedings of the 31st Annual ACM SIGUCCS Conference on User Services, 240-246. New York: ACM Press, 2003.
El-Sherbini, Magda, and George Klim. "Metadata and Cataloging Practices." The Electronic Library 22, no. 3 (2004): 238-248.
Fineman, Yale. "Electronic Theses and Dissertations." portal: Libraries and the Academy 3, no. 2 (2003): 219-227.
———. "Electronic Theses and Dissertations in Music." Notes 60, no. 4 (2004): 893-907.
Fox, Edward A., John L. Eaton, Gail McMillan, Neill A. Kipp, Paul Mather, Tim McGonigle, William Schweiker, and Brian DeVane. "Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations: An International Effort Unlocking University Resources." D-Lib Magazine (September 1997).
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september97/theses/09fox.html
Fox, Edward A., John L. Eaton, Gail McMillan, Neill A. Kipp, Laura Weiss, Emilio Arce, and Scott Guyer. "National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations: A Scalable and Sustainable Approach to Unlock University Resources." D-Lib Magazine (September 1996).
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september96/theses/09fox.html
Fox, Edward A., Shahrooz Feizabadi, Joseph M. Moxley, and Christian R. Weisser, eds. Electronic Theses and Dissertations: A Sourcebook for Educators, Students, and Librarians. New York: Marcel Dekker, 2004.
Fox, Edward A., Robert Hall, and Neill Kipp. "NDLTD: Preparing the Next Generation of Scholars for the Information Age." The New Review of Information Networking 3 (1997): 59-76.
Fox, Edward A., Gail McMillan, Hussein Suleman, Marcos A. Gonçalves, and Ming Luo. "Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)." In Digital Libraries: Policy, Planning and Practice, edited by Judith Andrews and Derek Law, 167-188. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate, 2004.
Goldsmith, Ursula Irene Anna. "Perceptions of Active Graduate Faculty at a Research Extensive University Regarding Electronic Submission of Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)." Louisiana State University, 2002.
Hagen, John H., Susanne Dobratz, and Peter Schirmbacher. "Electronic Theses and Dissertations Worldwide: Highlights of the ETD 2003 Symposium." D-Lib Magazine 9, no. 7/8 (2002).
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july03/hagen/07hagen.html
Hall, Susan. "Electronic Theses and Dissertations: Enhancing Scholarly Communication and the Graduate Student Experience." Science & Technology Libraries 22, no. 3/4 (2002): 51-58.
Humboldt-University Berlin. ETD 2003, Sixth International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Next Steps—Electronic Thesis and Dissertations Worldwide. Berlin: Humboldt-University Berlin.
http://www.hu-berlin.de/etd2003/
Jones, Richard. "DSpace vs. ETD-db: Choosing Software to Manage Electronic Theses and Dissertations." Ariadne, no. 38 (2004).
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue38/jones/
———. "The Tapir: Adding E-Theses Functionality to DSpace." Ariadne, no. 41 (2004).
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue41/jones/
Kushkowski, Jeffrey D. "Web Citation by Graduate Students: A Comparison of Print and Electronic Theses." portal: Libraries and the Academy 5, no. 2 (2005): 259-276.
Lee, Kyiho. "Construction of a Full-Text Database and Service System for Korean Electronic Theses and Dissertations." Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science & Technology 27, no. 3 (2001): 21-27.
http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Mar-01/lee.html#lee
MacColl, John. "Electronic Theses and Dissertations: A Strategy for the UK." Ariadne, no. 32 (2002).
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue32/theses-dissertations/
McMillan, Gail. "Do ETDs Deter Publishers?" College & Research Libraries News 62, no. 6 (2001): 620-621.
———. "Electronic Theses and Dissertations: Merging Perspectives." Cataloging and Classification Quarterly 22, no. 3-4 (1996): 105-125.
———. "ETD: Electronic Theses and Dissertations." In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, edited by Miriam Drake, 1034-1040. New York: Marcel Dekker, 2003.
———. "Managing Electronic Theses and Dissertations: The Third International Symposium." College & Research Libraries News 61, no. 5 (2000): 413-414.
McMillan, Gail, Ed Fox, and John Eaton. "Evolving Genre of Electronic Theses and Dissertations." In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, edited by Ralph H. Sprague. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Press, 1999.
Moxley, Joseph M. "Universities Should Require Electronic Theses and Dissertations." EDUCAUSE Quarterly 24, no. 3 (2001): 61-63.
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0139.pdf
Phanouriou, Constantinos, Neill A. Kipp, Ohm Sornil, Paul Mather, and Edward A. Fox. "A Digital Library for Authors: Recent Progress of the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations." In Proceedings of the Fourth ACM conference on Digital Libraries, 20-27. New York: ACM Press, 1999.
Seamans, Nancy H. "Electronic Theses and Dissertations as Prior Publications: What the Editors Say." Library Hi Tech 21, no. 1 (2003): 56-61.
Soete, George J. "Electronic Theses and Dissertations." Transforming Libraries, no. 7 (1998).
http://www.arl.org/transform/etd/
Suleman, Hussein, Anthony Atkins, Marcos A. Gonçalves, Robert K. France, Edward A. Fox, Vinod Chachra, Murray Crowder, and Jeff Young. "Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations: Bridging the Gaps for Global Access—Part 1: Mission and Progress." D-Lib Magazine 7, no. 9 (2001).
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september01/suleman/09suleman-pt1.html
Suleman, Hussein, Anthony Atkins, Marcos A. Goncalves, Robert K. France, Edward A. Fox, Vinod Chachra, Murray Crowder, and Jeff Young. "Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations: Bridging the Gaps for Global Access—Part 2: Services and Research." D-Lib Magazine 7, no. 9 (2001).
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september01/suleman/09suleman-pt2.html
Suleman, Hussein, and Edward A. Fox. "Leveraging OAI Harvesting to Disseminate Theses." Library Hi Tech 21, no. 2 (2003): 219-227.
http://pubs.cs.uct.ac.za/archive/00000018/
———. "Towards Universal Accessibility of ETDs: Building the NDLTD Union Archive."
http://www.husseinsspace.com/publications/etd_2002_paper_union.pdf
Surratt, Brian E., and Dustin Hill. "ETD2MARC: A Semiautomated Workflow for Cataloging Electronic Theses and Dissertations." Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 28, no. 2 (2004): 205-223.
Teper, Thomas H., and Beth Kraemer. "Long-Term Retention of Electronic Theses and Dissertations." College & Research Libraries 63, no. 1 (2002): 61-72.
Thompson, Larry A. "Electronic Theses and Dissertations at Virginia Tech." Science & Technology Libraries 20, no. 1 (2001): 87-101.
Ubogu, Felix N. "Spreading the ETD Gospel: A Southern Africa Perspective." International Information & Library Review 33, no. 2/3 (2001): 249-259.
Urs, Shalini R., and K.S. Raghavan. "Vidyanidhi: Indian Digital Library of Electronic Theses." Communications of the ACM 44, no. 5 (2001): 88-89.
Weisser, Christian, John Baker, and Janice R. Walker. "Problems and Possibilities of Electronic Theses and Dissertations." Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine (November 1997).
http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1997/nov/etds.html
Weisser, Christian, and Janice R. Walker. "Electronic Theses and Dissertations: Digitizing Scholarship for Its Own Sake." The Journal of Electronic Publishing 3, no. 2 (1997).
http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/03-02/etd.html
Young, Jeffrey R. "Requiring Theses in Digital Form: The First Year at Virginia Tech." The Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 February 1998, A29-A31.
Zhang, Yin, and Kyiho Lee. "Features and Uses of a Multilingual Full-Text Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDS) System." In National Online Meeting 2001: Proceedings of the 22nd National Online Meeting, New York, May 15-17, 2001, edited by Martha E. Williams, 555-566. Medford, NJ: Information Today, 2001.
Zhang, Yin, Kyiho Lee, and Bum-Jong You. "Usage Patterns of an Electronic Theses and Dissertations System." Online Information Review 25, no. 6 (2001): 370-377.
Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog Update (7/5/05)
The biweekly update of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog (SEPW) is now available, which provides brief information on 15+ new journal issues and other resources. Especially interesting are: "Creative Commons and Creative Commons Search Tools," a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Communication on online scholarly publishing, a special issue of Library Hi Tech on collaborative digitization programs, a special issue of Library Trends on the commercialized web, and "The RCUK Open-Access Policy Now Open for Comment."