Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library E-thesis submission – a case study Simon J. Bevan Information Systems Manager Cranfield University

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library Presentation outline 1.Cranfield University – brief background 2.Why electronic theses? 3.Timescales 4.Implementation management 5.Infrastructure 6.Workflow 7.Access & usage 8.Institutional repositories 9.Conclusions

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library ACTIVITIES Scope and Scale Silsoe Cranfield Shrivenham Bioscience & technology Agriculture, engineering & food technology Water & environmental management Land use & the environment Aerospace Engineering Industrial & manufacturing science Management Electronics & electro-optics Mechanical, materials & civil engineering Computing and IT Applied mathematics Defence management 10% 65% 25%

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library STUDENT NUMBERS Postgraduate 88% Undergraduate 12% Postgraduate 11% Undergraduate 89% Cranfield UniversityAverage of all other UK universities

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library E-theses & the Library Founder member of UTOG Involved in Index to Theses pilot for e- submission JISC/FAIR E-theses project Cranfield e-thesis submission

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library Why is the University doing this? Why e-theses? –Is it to ease submission process? –Save space? Will e-thesis be copy of record? Will paper archive be maintained? –Is it to make research more widely/easily available? –Benefit graduate education? –Initiate born digital development

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library Timescales How long does it take? Planning process Official channels –Committees –Build in possible delays Institutional culture Collective psyche

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library Cranfield progress Institutional progress –Initial report developed 2002 Teaching Committee (Feb 03) –Faculty Boards (Jun 03) –Faculty Boards (Oct 03) Teaching Committee (Nov 03) –Faculty Boards (Feb 04) Teaching Committee (Feb 04) –Senate (Mar 04) –Senate minutes confirmed (Jul 04)

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library Who has been involved? Who involved at Cranfield? Who are the stakeholders? –Library –Registry –Academic staff –Computer Centre –Press –Students (copyright permissions?) Who to lead? What issues need to be addressed? Terms of reference

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library Workflow (1) Various iterations of suggested submission procedure –E-submission up-front Version control –E-submission final version –Compulsory For all? –Research level only –Submission Student upload Physical – CD-ROM

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library

Workflow (2) Checking for copyright material Checking for PDF problems When available live? –Chance for publication – Restricted thesis workflow –Increase in theses that are restricted? Running through plagiarism software

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library Workflow (3) Cataloguing Metadata – a.htmlhttp://www2.rgu.ac.uk/library/guidelines/metadat a.html Thesis documentation page Extraction of MARC record from OPAC to upload to e-thesis server? Extraction of Metadata record from e-thesis server to upload to OPAC? OPAC linking to e-theses server

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library Other issues Infrastructure –Conversion software –CD-writers Non-technical –Training Templates/Master documents –Support –Official documentation Thesis guidelines Registry documentation Technical Technical –Platform/software What? OAI –DSpace =

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library Usage First thesis deposit: 10-Sep-2003 Number of theses: 40 (20-Sep-2004) Justification –100x more likely to be circulated than print theses (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) –Access increased by 145,000% over printed counterparts (West Virginia University) Access - Google

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library

Institutional repositories E-theses –Advocacy –Todays PhD student is tomorrows faculty member

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library Main difficulties at Cranfield Quality thresholds for open access –Submission/access/publication IPR & Access Plagiarism Marking paper theses Copy of record

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library Conclusions (1) Pragmatic stepped approach (this is the first phase) Path of least academic resistance Continuing with paper storage Continuing with paper marking Final corrected version only Current submission process still stands

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library Conclusions (2) Be aware of timescales Strategy for moving from submission of e- theses to e-submission Ensure that infrastructure can cope with future submission strategy

Electronic theses - the next stage, 27-Sep-2004, The British Library