E-theses Event, British Library 28 th March 2011 Lorna Mitchell & John Aanonson

Contents  Introduction to Brunel University  BURA and OA at Brunel  E-Theses at Brunel  What we did  How we did it  Benefits & Challenges

Brunel University  Research-intensive university based in Uxbridge, West London  Ca. 15,000 students  approximately 1,000 PhD students  Teaching and research based in 8 academic schools, 8 Specialist Research Institutes (SRIs) and 55 research and interdisciplinary research centres

BURA and Open Access at Brunel  Brunel University Research Archive (BURA) launched in December 2006  Managed by the University Library  Now contains approximately 4,000 full-text items  Includes 255 theses (as of February 2011)  OA Publishing fund established in June 2009  32 articles published to date  OA mandate introduced in September 2009

E-Theses at Brunel  By 2004 a BURA prototype had been set up by an academic School (SISCM) that included Masters Dissertations  Early publicity for BURA had resulted in academic staff asking for theses to be included  Influenced by similar work at other libraries in the UK and overseas and by the emerging EThOSnet project

E-Theses Mandate  October E-Theses mandate approved by the University senate  October 2008 – Mandate came into force  October 2009 – Compliance enforced AwardedOn BURA % Submitted 2007/ % 2008/ % 2009/ %

E-Theses: What Worked?  High level support in the University  Support from PVC (Research)  Emphasis on the strategic benefit to the University as well as the PhD students  Thorough preparation  Potential issues and pitfalls considered early on  Smooth transition from print to e-theses

E-Theses: the Benefits  Wider dissemination of research  High level of downloads from BURA  In the first year downloads ranged from 93 to 614 per thesis  Improved visibility  Google, EThOS, etc  Improving scholarly practice  Greater awareness of issues around copyright, etc  Theses are routinely checked against Turnitin

E-Theses: the Challenges  Academic staff and students generally welcomed e-theses  Advocacy work on the benefits of e-theses  How can we rather than Why should we  Theses can be embargoed where necessary  Compliance with the mandate  Non-compliance due to forgetfulness rather than objections to e-theses  Procedures in place to monitor submission

Contact Information: Carolyn Bailey Research Publications Manager