The Development of Open Access to ETDs in Canada: a Partnership between Canadian Universities and Library and Archives Canada 8 th International Symposium on ETDs September 28, 2005 Sharon Reeves Theses Canada, Library and Archives Canada

Overview History of Theses Canada Partnerships ETDs in Canada National Consultation on ETDs Theses Canada Portal OAI at Library and Archives Canada OAI Pilot Project: Pilot Project Evaluation Status of ETD Initiatives in Canada Conclusion

History of Theses Canada National thesis program established at NLC 1965 It’s our 40 th anniversary! One of the few centrally coordinated theses programs in the world 11,500 microfiche theses and dissertations per year

History of Theses Canada Original objectives: –to facilitate access to theses by identifying what was available and by providing copies via ILL or sale –to preserve theses by microfilming paper copies and storing preservation masters according to archival standards

History of Theses Canada Two significant changes in 37 years: –1990 reproduction and sales were outsourced –1998 NLC signed a contract with UMI Dissertations Publishing; UMI began to digitize theses

History of Theses Canada Canadian graduate students sign a Non- Exclusive License with LAC Allows LAC to reproduce, publish, loan, distribute, sell, and communicate theses to the public on the Internet Students retain full copyright ownership

Partnerships University participation voluntary 1965 five university partners university participants, covering most major Canadian graduate schools

Partnerships To join universities must belong to Association of Universities and Colleges in Canada No written agreements between individual universities and Theses Canada Flexibility for both universities and Theses Canada

ETDs in Canada During the late 1990’s interest in ETDs started to percolate in Canada Simon Fraser University experimented with Adobe PDF format to mount masters theses on the Web TUG (TriUniversity Group) Electronic Theses Project

ETDs in Canada 1999 University of Waterloo implemented first ETD submission program in Canada Other universities looking into ETD submission: l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval

National Consultation December 2000 NLC held national consultation to determine direction of national thesis program 78 participants: deans of graduate schools, university administrators and professors, library professionals and students

National Consultation Secondary objective: to discuss concerns of students and others regarding sales of Canadian theses by UMI Perceived to violate a fundamental principle to ensure freedom of access to scholarly information

National Consultation “Does the current commercial situation lead us down a path that restricts access to the very things we produced? This issue is not that different from our current situation with journal publication where authors freely give up their rights in order to be published, while the very reason for publishing is thwarted by the high cost of getting that information back”. (Maes 2000)

Theses Canada Portal Led to development of proposal for a searchable collection of Canadian theses on AMICUS Included: –Addition of abstracts to bibliographic records –Development of web-based search interface –Creation of new search indexes

Theses Canada Portal Included proposal to patriate theses digitized by UMI between Foundation of Theses Canada Portal Fall Portal design and systems development 2003: 45,000+ ETDs from UMI

Theses Canada Portal Launched at Ontario Library Association Conference January 2004 Provides access to records for all theses/dissertations in LAC’s collection Free online access to ETDs

Theses Canada Portal 2004 all ETDs indexed to permit clients to search full text Check out the Portal at:

OAI at Library and Archives Canada National thesis program still dependent on outside resources to realize its mandate “What was needed was a way of taking back ownership of the distribution and preservation of Canadian theses and dissertations”

OAI at Library and Archives Canada Clear solution – NLC had to develop program to acquire ETDs from universities October 2002 CTS Advisory Committee recommended CTS conduct pilot project with l’Université Laval and University of Waterloo Goal: to acquire their ETDs

OAI Pilot Project Advantages of using OAI open source software immediately apparent NLC could harvest metadata for ETDs from universities and make it available to other organizations To fulfill LAC’s mandate needed to harvest ETDs as well

OAI Pilot Project LAC harvester and repository ready by December 2003 Target date for start of six-month pilot, April 1, 2004 Merger of National Library with National Archives spring 2004 meant systems staff deflected to new institutional initiatives

OAI Pilot Project Delay allowed us to add University of Manitoba and University of Saskatchewan to project Identified several issues : –Program for our harvester needs to be changed in order to harvest multiple file PDFs –DSpace does not support ETD-ms

Pilot Project Evaluation Harvested records uploaded to AMICUS March 2005 Good quality access records with a few bugs: –Two conversion problems –Workflow issues

Pilot Project Evaluation Access to systems expertise ongoing problem All issues related to records and workflow should be resolved soon Program should be available to other Canadian universities late fall 2005

ETD Initiatives in Canada 2002 U of Waterloo only Canadian university with ETD submission program Université Laval had just finished pilot project Survey 2004: –40% of our partners were interested in or had started planning for ETD submission

ETD Initiatives in Canada Survey cont’d.: –48% did not reply; 63% have very small graduate programs –Only 9% expressed no interest Follow-up survey planned for fall 2005

ETD Initiatives in Canada Eleven universities currently planning/conducting pilot projects DSpace popular choice Promotion of LAC’s harvesting program during follow-up survey

Conclusion A number of universities will put ETD submission programs in place over the next few years Soon Theses Canada will be well on its way to taking back ownership of the distribution of Canadian graduate student research and to providing open access to it