1. Establishing an Electronic Theses Repository using Digital Commons
Deborah L. White, MLIS
Digital Resources & Initiatives Manager
Pittsburg State University
Yumi Ohira, MFA, MLS
Digital Initiatives Librarian
University of Nebraska - Omaha
November 4th, 2016

2. Agendas
Introduction
Advantages and disadvantages of Bepress DC and CDM
ETD Workflows - PSU, FHSU, (UNO)
Conclusion
(Yumi: I will a little bit talk about my current institution UNO to clear up confusion..)

3. Institutional Need for an IR
What is an IR?
▪ Collecting, preserving & disseminating scholarship
▪ Publish & showcase institutional scholarship
Role of an IR
▪ Manage open access to digital content produced by the university
▪ Encourages knowledge sharing
▪ Permits quick and easy dissemination of scholarship across institutions
An IR actively provides open access to a wide variety of scholarly materials that benefits institutional communities.
IRs are increasingly employed in academic institutions to manage a variety of digital content including educational, research, and archival materials.
The proposed benefits of IRs have been identified in the literature including knowledge sharing, control over the digital assets of the university, and preservation.
IRs allow authors to disseminate their works quickly, broadly, and cheaply.
An IR can increase the professional visibility for faculty research and student works, as well as library’s visibility in the area of research support.
This visibility or awareness increasingly thrives with both broader dissemination and increased use or access.
This results in supporting faculty/student success in ways that improve teaching and learning, and provides positive experiences.
Then, the impact of publications and university can be increased.

4. Pittsburg State University Fort Hays State University
▪ CONTENTdm
▪ Launched Digital Commons December 2015 & Announced January 2016
▪ CONTENTdm
▪ Launched Digital Commons September & Announced December 2015
 Located in the southeast corner of Kansas, Pittsburg State University (PSU) has a student population of more than 7,400. The PSU campus has only one library, Leonard H. Axe Library.
Fort Hays State University (FHSU) is located in western Kansas, between Denver, CO, and Kansas City, KS.
FHSU has enrollment hit 14,000 in 2015, including more than 6,000 online students in over 20 countries (--China branch campus).
Like the PSU campus, Forsyth Library is only library at the FHSU campus.
Both PSU and FHSU are a small university in rural Kansas, but have had continual growth as one of the Kansas Board of Regents universities.
PSU and FHSU currently use CONTENTdm (CDM) as their primary digital repository.
In 2015, both institutions purchased and launched an open access digital repository from Berkeley Electronic Press (Bepress) called Digital Commons (DC), which showcases a variety of scholarship produced by the university, such as theses and dissertations (ETDs), reports, conferences, journals, and peer-reviewed publications.
Both institutions purchased DC to have a more robust repository for scholarship published by faculty and students.
At the same time creating efficient ways to enhance the value and capture the global impact of the scholarship by making it globally discoverable.
DC offers global discoverability, unlimited storage, efficient technical support, and the ability to share a wide range of file formats in one interface.
PSU and FHSU have populated their IRs with digital content that includes thesis while implementing the digital and scholarly communication initiatives across campus.

5. Why Digital Commons? Digital Commons Dspace Eprints Fedora Islandora …
Positive Benefits
Customer support
Intuitive interface
Cloud-based
Preservation – LOCKSS
Unlimited storage
Usage reports
Digital Commons
Dspace
Eprints
Fedora
Islandora …
The institutions have faced the process of selecting IRs to support a wide range of digital asset management, including ETD management.
Several institutional repository tools are available as an open source software (OSS) tool or proprietary software tool, for example, DSpace, Eprints, and Fedora/Fez.
PSU and FHSU, both selected Berkeley Electronic Press (Bepress) - Digital Commons (DC) platform, due to the manpower and technical issues that need to be ironed out in order for it to be successful.
These are just parts of the DC’s positive benefits for, especially a middle or small institution which has a lack of manpower.
DC offers global discoverability, unlimited storage, efficient technical support, and the ability to share a wide range of file formats in one interface.
This repository provides digital preservation and open access to a wide variety of scholarships – for example, faculty papers, student scholarships, and conferences - which are produced by the university community.
Also, the repository functions as a vehicle to drive research communication across disciplines and around the world.

6. CRITERIA
CONTENTdm
Bepress DC
Open Source/Proprietary
Proprietary
Software or Hosted Service
Hosted Service
Support Available
YES – via CDM
YES – via Bepress ( , phone, resources, and community support)
Content File Formats
Some
All
Metadata Standard
Simple and Qualified Dublin Core and customizable metadata
Syndication (RSS, etc.) NO
YES
Statistical Reporting
Design Rationale for IR – Flexibility
Design Rationale for IR – Accessibility
Design Rationale for IR – Interoperability (OAI-PMH)
Implementation Technologies (Scripting language, Database, Operating System)
N/A: hosted
(System requirements: Linux/Windows)
Storage
YES, but costs $ over 196,000 items
NO (unlimited storage)
Batch processing
Journal Publishing
Both CONTENTdm and DC are widely implemented in academic libraries to host an institutional repository and provide positive features, including presentation of the various types of digital materials.
This is a Comparison of basic and major functionalities between CONTENTdm and Bepress DC.
CONTENTdm is hosted on OCLC and is a stand-alone digital asset management system.
CONTENTdm is best for image-based materials with a large metadata structure which allows for granular metadata for those visual materials.
Bepress DC has the capability to bring scholarly materials, such as theses and dissertations, together in one searchable location, while CONTENTdm has the advantage of visual materials with flexible metadata.
Because of this reason, PSU has begun to migrate scholarly works from CONTENTdm to DC, including Theses materials.
FHSU, as well as my current institution UNO, is planning to publish electronic theses in DC, like many institutions use DC to manage and publish ETDs.

7. Electronic Thesis and Dissertation
Why ETD?
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation
Benefits of ETDs for both students and institutions
Improve access to scholarly research
Free publicity for their research
Reduced costs for the students
As more and more institutions move towards electronic submission, storage, and dissemination of theses and dissertations, it's important to keep in mind the benefits of ETDs -- for both students and institutions -- over traditional paper submissions.
Improves access to scholarly research because it makes their work accessible to anyone with an internet connection
Easy worldwide access for your colleagues and collaborators
Easy worldwide access to theses/dissertations for job and grant applications
Free publicity for your research - the authors of electronic theses become more widely known and their reputations are enhanced.
Reduced costs for the student at the point of graduation since there is no need to have multiple copies printed.
Repository is more convenient than making and maintaining their own webpage

8. Library Graduate School ETD Partnership Digital Commons
Designing an effective workflow is one of the essential requirements for an ETD project to be successful.
The development of an ETD program requires the collaborative work of the graduate school and the library, as well as participation from the faculty and students.
For example,
If the graduate schools look to the library, they may find the partnership.
Many institutions have been operating the digital repository for campus scholarships.
The library has a platform which has combined with flexible ETD workflow with publishing system that gives ETDs much discoverabilities and indexing major academic databases.
IR can provide a means to centralize scholarships and institutional branded around the system rather than having disposed crossed the web.
The library also provides services campus, expert developing online records systems, their profession at both preservation and dissemination scholarships, which makes perfect partnership with the graduate school

9. Bepress provides a good webinar regarding the ETD publishing models.
If you are planning to publish ETDs in an IR, this webinar would be helpful for you to design an effective ETD workflow.
This webinar presents examples of publishing models for every stage of the ETD Lifecycle.
Different means, focus on different aspects of the process, they can be broadly grouped together based on when the ETD is ingested into the repository
Some IRs only capture ETDs once they are completed published.
Some integrated earlier, under final review by the graduate school
Other integrate they are still draft, student has been working under the advisor.
Show those stages as the lifecycle of ETD
completed Open Access ETD as seen as a butterfly
ETDs under the graduate school review as seen as a chrysalis
One is still draft is a caterpillar
“Emerging Trends in ETD Publishing Models: A Bird's Eye View”, Dave Seitz, bepress.

10. Current ETD Workflow at PSU
Student registers & submits their committee members to the Office of Graduate & Continuing Studies into the GUS system
Student attends a required workshop to create an account in Digital Commons & learn about the submission & review process
Metadata
Title
Abstract
Committee
Degree Name
Department
Date of Award
Keywords
Subject Categories
PSU workflows
Graduate office assigns the reviewers indicated in GUS & submits revision decision letter.
Student submits draft of thesis as a word .docx, adds metadata required by the system, and adds any supplemental files

11. Review Workflow at PSU
Student makes revisions based on feedback from the Graduate College & committee members.
System generates an to all persons associated with the thesis.
PSU workflows
Student uploads revised theses

12. Review Workflow at PSU
All committee members must register a decision in order for the thesis to be made available online
Embargos:
Administrative note is added
Thesis is Locked by the Administrator
Max embargo is 3 years
Graduate & Continuing Studies s me to let me know that theses are ready to be made available in the system
PSU workflows

13. Current ETD Workflow at FHSU

14. Theses Migration: CONTENTdm – Bepress DC at FHSU

18. $$$ Current ETD Workflow at UNO Library Graduate School the Student

19. Graduate School
Library

20. Conclusion Library collaboration Graduate School Digital Commons
A growing number of scholarly works are deposited into institutional repositories and openly available. Students are benefitting from the institutional repository by depositing their theses and dissertations. The efforts to develop and establish strategies guiding deposition of theses and dissertations into IRs would cause greater appreciation of the impact of scholarly output. The aims to develop workflows to promote the ETD programs and collaborations across campus, especially between the library and the Graduate School office thereby enhancing the distribution of digital content. Across-campus collaboration and inter-library collaboration are essential to build a robust ETD program and encouraging further dialog about the need of academic institutions in the future. The aim of ETD programs include providing greater recognition and exposure to the wealth of information and scholarship that theses and dissertations represent.
Repository selection and implementation of ETD workflow are tied to the ETD programs success which depending upon size and type of academic institution. It is important to evaluate prospective new digital repositories with advantages and disadvantages, while recognizing the institution’s size and type, system hosting environment, and manpower. Without the reality for this recognition, there can be no good resolution and ETD success. Collaborative efforts and efficient communication between the Library and the Graduate School office are imperative to ETDs success. The ETD processes involve multiple administrative units on campus and the library. Communication and collaboration between campus units and the library remain successful and these key relationships can maintain and improve an ETD program.
Digital Commons

21. Deborah L. White, MLIS, dlwhite@pittstate.edu
Digital Resources and Initiatives Manager, Pittsburg State University
Yumi Ohira, MLS, MFA,
Digital Initiatives Librarian, University of Nebraska - Omaha
November 4th, 2016
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.