Integrating University Thesis and Research Deposit Mandates

From: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_GMAIL.COM>
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 06:50:30 -0400

                  ETD 2009   June 10, Pittsburgh

      12th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and
      Dissertations: PROGRAM

      Integrating University Thesis and Research Deposit
      Mandates

      Stevan Harnad
      Université de Québec à Montréal & University of
      Southampton

      Full text: PDF
      Appendices: Harnad PowerPoint slides

Abstract: A growing number of universities are beginning to require
the digital deposit of theirthesis and dissertation output in
their institutional repositories. At the same time, a growing number
of universities as well as research funders are beginning to mandate
that all refereed research must be deposited too. This makes for a
timely synergy between the practices of the younger and older
generation of researchers as the Open Access era unfolds. It also
maximizes the uptake, usage and impact of university research input
at all stages, as well as providing rich and powerful new metrics to
monitor and reward research productivity and impact. It is important
to integrate universities' ETD and research output repositories,
mandates and metrics as well as to provide the mechanism for those
deposits that may need to be made Closed Accessrather than Open
Access: Repositories need to implement the "email eprint request"
Button for all Closed Access Deposits. Any would-be user webwide,
having reached the metadata of a Closed Access Deposit can, with one
click, request an eprint for research purposes; the author instantly
receives an automatic email and can then, again with one click,
authorize the automatic emailing of one copy to the user by the
repository software. This feature is important for fulfilling
immediate research usage needs during any journal-article embargo
period, and it also gives the authors of dissertations they hope to
publish as books a way to control who has access to the dissertation.
Digital dissertations will also benefit from
the reference-linking and book-citation metrics that will be provided
by harvesters of the distributed institutional repository metadata
(which will also include the metadata and reference lists of all
university book output). Dissertation downloads as well as
eprint-requests will also provide useful new research impact metrics.
Received on Mon Jun 01 2009 - 11:51:39 BST