1. Supporting further and higher education Invitation to Tender A project to Support e-theses for UK Higher Education

2. Supporting further and higher education Summary Proposals are invited to undertake a test- bed implementation project to deliver an infrastructure to support the deposit, access and use of research theses for the UK Higher Education (HE) sector Duration: 16 to 18 months Funding: Maximum of £200,000 (inc vat) Submission date: 3 rd November (12.00 noon)

3. Supporting further and higher education Background Within the UK access to theses remains patchy and difficult ( Index to Theses enables to trace, but obtaining hard copy is lengthy process) Most these remain unused on library shelves and the research unknown Other countries have tackled this issue e.g. Council for Australian University Libraries - Networked Digital Library for Theses Digitisation (NDLTD) initiative

4. Supporting further and higher education Background Experience from the JISC FAIR programme points to the need for some national coordination of services to support the management and use of e- theses The project will act as a test-bed to help resolve associated issues, build on lessons and outcomes from the JISC FAIR Programme and provide a body of evidence to help inform any future e- theses service models taken forward within the UK

5. Supporting further and higher education Issues and Scope Fair projects examining the use of e-theses: -DAEDALUS -Theses Alive! -Electronic Theses

6. Supporting further and higher education Issues & Scope Will want project to look at a cross section of institutions representing different cultures, research interests and administrative systems Subject types and format types. Preservation issues Processes. i.e. internal administration systems and records can be joined up

7. Supporting further and higher education Issues and Scope Harvesting metadata and/or full content for service and archiving Provision of access to e-theses (locally) or harvesting of metadata from OAI compliant repositories Retro digitisation – rights management and costs and how they sit alongside digital theses

8. Supporting further and higher education Issues and Scope Archiving – possibly using Hybrid Archives Model (AHDS) under the FAIR programme Provision of repository facilities for institutions without local repository implementation Open Access – IPR models Adhere to standards – OAI core standard

9. Supporting further and higher education Issues and Scope Propose architecture(s) and workflow(s) relationship between national and institutional repositories Propose business models and feasibility for delivering these services beyond the period of the trial. This will need to be done in cooperation with an evaluation that will be commissioned at a later stage

10. Supporting further and higher education E-theses Questions Balviar Notay b.notay@jisc.ac.uk