The concept of Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) is
not a new one. E-Theses have been openly discussed by key players in the
present worldwide ETD movement since 1987[1],
and even accepted by some universities (e.g. Virginia Tech) since 1994[2].
Presently, the acceptance of e-theses as a viable medium is increasing. This is
reflected in the growing number of universities that actually require an
electronic version to be submitted. At the last count the number of
universities registered with the Networked Digital Library of Theses and
Dissertations (NDLTD) that actively mandate electronic submission totalled 56,
from a diverse background including not only North American and European
institutes (e.g. California Institution of Technology, University of Texas at
Austin, Virginia Tech), but also universities from South America, Asia and
Africa. In contrast, no universities from the
It seems that in the
With online dissemination now a viable option, the intuitive
action, for the researcher using thesis and dissertation literature, is to
proceed directly to the full-text at the instant they wish to. For that reason,
and because web sites are now so prominent in the communications of researchers
among themselves, thesis literature has been moving online anyway, but in a
patchy and uncontrolled way. A recent study of research material posted in the
The Theses Alive! project has been set up to investigate the technological and cultural issues involved for UK HE institutions wishing to attain e-theses capability, and to initiate a pilot national service through partner institutions. Theses Alive! is not a consortium, but being based at Edinburgh University Library, the project is working with the following non-funded partners and agencies; suppliers of open source software (e.g. the MIT-led DSpace Federation), universities involved in piloting the system (Cranfield University, Cambridge University, Leeds University and Manchester Metropolitan University) and theses metadata agencies (e.g. British Library Theses Service and the Index to Theses service) to achieve the following objectives;
The project will therefore work both to create the submission/management software required, and to promote the take up of electronic theses production and management generally in UK HE.
Various open-source packages are now in use that permit individual institutions to manage their own digital research outputs. We have evaluated two open source packages to deliver e-theses functionality via a web-based interface: ETD-db[5] by Virginia Tech, and DSpace[6] written in partnership between Hewlett-Packard (HP) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Our conclusions from this study were that DSpace would provide a better core system for an e-theses repository.[7] However, another recent study between the other major open-source software Eprints.org[8] and DSpace concludes; ‘ It is not a question of which software is better but rather which is appropriate for the institutional services which you are building, their purpose and the content’.[9] I think we are all in agreement that technology is not now the key barrier, but the real challenge lies in gathering content for these services.
At Edinburgh University Library we have installed DSpace as our chosen package to develop our e-theses project upon. In order to achieve the aims of our project is has been necessary to develop our own tools to add extra functionality to DSpace. These tools have been developed as a modular add-on pack to the core DSpace code.
The current EUL- DSpace Add-On pack provides the ability within DSpace to operate a supervised authoring facility, allowing Thesis and Dissertation Supervisors to observe the ongoing work by their student on their project, to comment and to even make changes. This comes with an addition to the DSpace administration area to manage the supervising groups and their access policies to the student's work. It is envisaged that although developed specifically with ETDs in mind, that this software may also find other applications. In addition, two submission interfaces (one for e-prints and other documents, and one for e-theses) are now supported, with the option to choose between them.
Development of this product is ongoing under the funding of JISC, and the result will be an open source, freely available addition to the DSpace archiving software from MIT and HP. These tools and installation documentation are freely available to download from our website.[10]
The Theses Alive! project has also been working
closely with the Robert Gordon University-led Electronic Theses project,
the
With the software development side of the project nearing
completion we are ready to offer a pilot e-theses service within the
Dr. Theo Andrew
theo.andrew@ed.ac.uk
[1] Fox, E. A., Eaton, J.L, McMillan, .G, Kipp, N.A, Weiss, L. Arce, E. & Guyer, S, (1996), ``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]
[2] Weisser, C., Baker, J., & Walker, J.R. (1997), ``Problems and Possibilities of Electronic Theses and Dissertations'' CMC Magazine, November 1997.
[http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1997/nov/etduniv.html]
[3] British Theses Service website: http://www.bl.uk/britishthesis
[4] Andrew, T. (2003), “Trends in Self-Posting of Research Material Online by Academic Staff”, Ariadne, 37 [http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue37/andrew/]
[5] ETD-db home page: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ETD-db/
[6] DSpace home page: http://www.dspace.org/
[7] Jones, R.D. (2003) “DSpace versus ETD-db: Choosing software to manage electronic theses and dissertations”. Ariadne, 38 [http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue38/jones/]
[8] Eprints home page: http://www.eprints.org/
[9] Nixon,
W.J. (2003) “DAEDALUS: Initial experiences with EPrints and DSpace at the
[10] Theses Alive! software downloads: http://www.thesesalive.ac.uk/dsp_home.shtml
[11] RGU Electronic Theses website : http://www2.rgu.ac.uk/library/e-theses.htm