2. E-theses at Sussex : A post-mortem

3. University of Sussex
First of the plate glass Universities, 1961 (though lots of red bricks)
One campus, one Library
About 200 DPhils awarded a year (Dphil = PHD)

4. Before
Students submit two bound copies of thesis on completion (to central Student Progress and Assessment Office). One to Library, one to School.
After
Students submit two copies of thesis on completion, one bound, one PDF copy (to central Student Progress and Assessment Office). Electronic to Library, bound to School.

5. How did we get there?

6. Focused on procedures and policies Embargoes already defined
Early 2008: Professor on Research Committee put paper forwarded for electronic submission of e-theses.
Small group of people from Library and Professional Services met up to implement. Somewhat ad-hoc
Focused on procedures and policies
Embargoes already defined

7. Workflow
Worked with IT Services to develop processes for handling electronic submission.
Student submits 1 hard copy and 1 electronic copy to central office, latter on CD-ROM or USB stick.
File stored on shared network drive. Staff create ticket in dedicated queue on helpdesk/enquiry RT system. Queue has extra fields for each ticket for title/name/embargo/etc.
When ‘owner’ of ticket is assigned to Library, Library cataloguer adds thesis to Institutional repository. Adds cover sheet.
Very similar to what happened with a physical thesis

8. Going Live
Any thesis submitted on or after October 2009 has to be submitted electronically
Started to reach Library Spring 2010
All went well.

9. What can we learn No one really had clear picture of original process.
E-theses highlighted issues that had always been there.
Some students are concerned about there thesis being online, being ‘googleable’, etc. How do we handle this?
Some wanted to have a secure PDF. Do we need policy
Balance between enforcing policy and providing flexibility to students.
Who deals with the issues

10. What more can we learn… A Working Group would have helped.
If Doctoral School had existed when project started would have been of great help. Would have provided ownership and glue between library/registry/schools/supervisors/students.
Some things slipped through gap between Library and registry. Not the right people to be communicating with postgraduates

11. Third party copyright
The easy task of getting supervisors to lead on ensuring submitted thesis do not included uncleared third party copyright and un-anonymised personal information
Can’t be left to submission time.
Need to show that permission has been granted for future reference
What to do if final submission does contain uncleared thirdparty copyright?

12. An aside : finding Sussex Theses
Theses submitted before October 2009 are on the Library Catalogue (and can be read in the Library), many also on EThOS and others can be requested for digitalisation on EThOS.
Theses submitted after October 2009 are current NOT on the library catalogue. They are on Sussex Research Online, and the PDF can be download easily for free. But not on EThOS yet.
Confusing for me.

13. Plans
Add records to catalogue. If not time consuming. Adapting eprints MARC export plug-in. (resource discovery tool may remove the need)
Setup EThOS harvesting Institutional Repository
Refine policy around copyright, embargoes, exceptions etc
Increase support for students and supervisors. Work with Doc School.
Future more to e-only?

14. Takeaway
Getting a Professor to write a paper to mandate e-theses is awesome
Working groups are the new black (and work well for this kind of stuff)
Keep the process the same, just with a PDF
Copyright: Embrace risk. Educate. Have procedures for worse case
Communicate
Some students wont like it. What to do?

15. Thanks http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/view/type/thesis.html
160 theses in IR as of March 2011
Chris Keene
University of Sussex Library
@chriskeene