Andy Appleyard, Head – Document Supply and Customer Services Vicky Roy – Support Services Manager 18 th February 2011 Ethos Update
2 The Aims of the EThOS Collaboration Offer a UK PhD single point of access produced by UK HE via Open Access. To support HE through the transition from print to electronic. To expand available content via digitisation. To demonstrate UK research on a global scale.
3 Service Delivery – Old v New (Technology)
4 The ordering and delivery workflow Institutional Repository/Hub Library o w n l o a d ( O p e n A c c e s s ) Researcher Deliver Institution e-theses paper
5 The Kirtas APT2400 auto page turning scanner can produce up to 1200 thesis images per hour. Equates to 15 theses / shift. Pages must be uniform with no pull outs. Zeutchell OS machines originally followed by another 2. Can digitise 4.5 theses / shift. Good flexible, reliable machines with own Omniscan post processing software. Fujitsu 5750 ADF feed for theses that can have cut pages. Advantage being fast & good quality. Unfortunately less quantity of cut bound theses than was planned. BL Digitisation Studio Process options (designed to suit each individual theses)
6 Usage Statistics Interesting facts:- 113 member institutions 44,551 theses digitised and available (14.7 million pages) 268k downloads to date (88 million pages) Average each theses usage x 6 times compared to 2 from previous microfilm service. Delivered to 185 countries around the world.
7 What do End Users like about EThOS? Speed of Access Source – Ethos Impact Survey Range of Theses available Intuitive Interface, convenient. Ease of navigation. Various delivery options Ability to search text (OCR) Electronic / PDF, read anywhere Open Access Only 16% of respondents had a negative view Very easy to use “I think it’s wonderful – such a fantastic way to share knowledge” What do supplying HEIs like about EThOS? Ability to combine back digitisation of print theses with electronic theses. “(Model) fairly flexible and working well for us”
8 Revised EThOS Model – Sept 2011 New Project Board under the chairmanship of Professor K. Schürer, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise at the University of Leicester. Also represented - The British Library, RLUK, Sconul, JISC, JISC Collections, DART-Europe, HE and Cranfield. New business model was approved in principle by the Project Board in January 2011 Following consultation agreed to focus on e-theses only. As a separate strand the British Library will continue to offer a digitisation service The new Board will oversee the launch of the new service and its future development. Plan to meet in May to agree plans and a communications strategy with the goal of launching the new service in September 2011.