Knowledge discovery in digital libraries of electronic theses and dissertations: an NDLTD case study

This paper provides a case study on remediating electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) metadata at the University of Houston Libraries. The authors provide an overview of the team’s efforts to revise existing ETD metadata in its institutional repository as part of their commitment to aligning ETD records with the Texas Digital Library Descriptive Metadata Guidelines for Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Version 2.0 (TDL guidelines, version 2). The paper reviews the existing literature on metadata quality and ETD metadata practices, noting how their case study adds one of the first documented cases of ETD metadata remediation. The metadata upgrade process is described, with close attention to the tools and workflows developed to complete the remediation. The authors conclude the paper with a discussion of lessons learned, the project’s limitations, future plans, and the emerging needs of metadata remediation work.

Download Full-text

Communication channels and the adoption of digital libraries for electronic theses and dissertations

Proceedings of the 2004 joint ACM/IEEE conference on Digital libraries - JCDL '04 ◽

10.1145/996350.996447 ◽

2004 ◽

Author(s):

Suzie Allard

Keyword(s):

Digital Libraries ◽

Communication Channels ◽

Electronic Theses And Dissertations ◽

Theses And Dissertations

Download Full-text

How Should One Explore the Digital Library of the Future?#

Data and Information Management ◽

10.2478/dim-2021-0003 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

Edward A. Fox ◽

Prashant Chandrasekar

Keyword(s):

User Experience ◽

Subject Matter ◽

Digital Libraries ◽

Knowledge Graph ◽

Web Pages ◽

Subject Matter Experts ◽

Student Teams ◽

The Future ◽

Electronic Theses And Dissertations ◽

Theses And Dissertations

Abstract This article partially addresses a challenge from Licklider in his 1965 book on “Libraries of the Future,” focusing on how to build extensible digital libraries that can dramatically expand the support of exploration. A new methodology connects the efforts of User eXperience researchers with those of subject matter experts (domain scientists, curators, researchers, and so on) and developers. This allows constructing a knowledge graph representing the relationships among goals, tasks, workflows, and services. A reasoner empowers authorized users to have their goals met with suitable workflows that are dynamically generated and executed. Student teams have applied the new methodology to support users interested in tweets, web pages, or electronic theses and dissertations, as well as those curating and experimenting with those collections. Exploration is thus broadened across content types and their elements, with an extensible set of services, to address an arbitrary set of stakeholder goals.

Download Full-text

ETD: total cost of ownership – collecting, archiving and providing access

Library Management ◽

10.1108/lm-08-2013-0084 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 35 (4/5) ◽

pp. 250-258 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Yan Han

Keyword(s):

Total Cost Of Ownership ◽

Current Time ◽

Content Type ◽

Total Cost ◽

Cost Of Ownership ◽

University Of Arizona ◽

Electronic Theses And Dissertations ◽

The University ◽

Theses And Dissertations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a case study of total cost of ownership (TOC) for Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD). Only few articles have been published to discuss the costs associated with repository and/or theses and dissertations (TD). Design/methodology/approach – The paper first provides literature reviews in costs associated with repository and TD. By using the DCC life cycle model, the author presents costs for each actionable category: create or receive, appraise & select, ingest, preservation action, store, access, use and reuse and transform. The paper presents four TOCs to illustrate the changes of TOCs from 2005 to current time. Findings – The paper gives one case study of the TOCs for ETD over the years, and illustrates how the University lowered the TOCs. The current ETD's TOC is on a par with these costs of two other studies published related to repository titles. The TOC has been decreased from the traditional paper-based TD of $75 per title to ETD of $69 in 2005. By removing the ProQuest processing fee of $55, the TOC decreased to $14.37 in 2010. The TOC is currently $6.33 per title after the ETD collection was migrated to the University of Arizona repository. Research limitations/implications – Readers shall be aware that there are no “transform” and little “preservation action” tasks performed. The current cost of “transform” is $0 due to the nature of ETD of its rigid format requirements, Originality/value – The paper fulfills the need to study costs associated with repository titles, especially ETD titles. It also provide a way to estimate costs for institutions planning to start ETD collections.

Download Full-text

Performance assessment of electronic theses and dissertations initiatives in Nigeria

Digital Library Perspectives ◽

10.1108/dlp-01-2020-0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 36 (2) ◽

pp. 127-148

Author(s):

Sadiat Adetoro Salau ◽

Georgina U. Oyedum ◽

F.P. Abifarin ◽

S.J. Udoudoh ◽

Jibril A. Alhassan

Keyword(s):

Federal Government ◽

Digital Libraries ◽

Performance Metrics ◽

Reference Model ◽

Research Output ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Content Type ◽

The Poor ◽

Electronic Theses And Dissertations ◽

Theses And Dissertations

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the performance of electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) initiatives in the repositories of federal government-owned universities due to the poor global visibility of ETDs from Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach An explanatory case study empirical research method was adopted for the study. Using an adapted methodology of Ghosh (2009) and multiple data gathering techniques, data was collected based on the three domains of the network of excellence on digital libraries (DELOS) digital library reference model. Findings The ETD initiatives in repositories of Nigerian federal universities have not made remarkable progress as digital libraries based on policy, content and system architecture. The specificity of ETDs is not clearly stated in the policies where available. The repositories housing the ETDs are also not compliant with the open archive initiative-protocol for metadata harvesting framework. Research limitations/implications The study focussed on ETD initiatives in federal government-owned universities. Although the findings of the study are relevant to other institutions in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa. It cannot be used as a basis for the generalisation based on other performance metrics. Practical implications This research study concluded that electronic theses and dissertations in Nigerian institutional repositories are not well managed for effective service delivery and long-term accessibility. The ill-management of the ETD initiatives is the reason for the poor global visibility and accessibility of these research output from this part of Africa. Originality/value The study assessed ETD initiatives using constructs from a theoretical framework.

Download Full-text

Reference Rot in the Repository: A Case Study of Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) in an Academic Library

Information Technology and Libraries ◽

10.6017/ital.v36i1.9598 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 36 (1) ◽

pp. 11 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Mia Massicotte ◽

Kathleen Botter

Keyword(s):

Random Sample ◽

Academic Library ◽

Institutional Repository ◽

Stimulate Action ◽

Electronic Theses And Dissertations ◽

Doctoral Dissertations ◽

Theses And Dissertations

This study examines ETDs deposited during the period 2011-2015 in an institutional repository, to determine the degree to which the documents suffer from reference rot, that is, linkrot plus content drift. The authors converted and examined 664 doctoral dissertations in total, extracting 11,437 links, finding overall that 77% of links were active, and 23% exhibited linkrot. A stratified random sample of 49 ETDs was performed which produced 990 active links, which were then checked for content drift based on mementos found in the Wayback Machine. Mementos were found for 77% of links, and approximately half of these, 492 of 990, exhibited content drift. The results serve to emphasize not only the necessity of broader awareness of this problem, but also to stimulate action on the preservation front.

Download Full-text

Using the Harvesting Method to Submit ETDs into ProQuest

Information Technology and Libraries ◽

10.6017/ital.v39i3.12197 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 39 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Marielle Veve

Keyword(s):

Alternative Methods ◽

Recent Experience ◽

Institutional Repository ◽

Global Database ◽

Harvesting Method ◽

Electronic Theses And Dissertations ◽

Open Archives ◽

Theses And Dissertations ◽

Open Archives Initiative

The following case study describes an academic library’s recent experience implementing the harvesting method to submit electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) into the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global database (PQDT). In this lesser-known approach, ETDs are deposited first in the institutional repository (IR), where they get processed, to be later harvested for free by ProQuest through the IR’s Open Archives Initiative (OAI) feed. The method provides a series of advantages over some of the alternative methods, including students’ choice to opt-in or out from ProQuest, better control over the embargo restrictions, and more customization power without having to rely on overly complicated workflows. Institutions interested in adopting a simple, automated, post-IR method to submit ETDs into ProQuest, while keeping the local workflow, should benefit from this method.

Download Full-text

Leveraging Author-Supplied Metadata, OAI-PMH, and XSLT to Catalog ETDs: A Case Study at a Large Research Library

Library Resources and Technical Services ◽

10.5860/lrts.60n3.191 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 60 (3) ◽

pp. 191 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ken Robinson ◽

Jeff Edmunds ◽

Stephen C. Mattes

Keyword(s):

Quality Assurance ◽

Research Library ◽

Online Environment ◽

Challenges And Opportunities ◽

Electronic Theses And Dissertations ◽

Harvesting Process ◽

Theses And Dissertations ◽

Digital Assets ◽

Large Research

Most academic theses and dissertations are now born-digital assets (i.e., electronic theses and dissertations). As such, they often coexist with author-supplied metadata that has the potential for being repurposed and enhanced to facilitate discovery and access in an online environment. The authors describe the evolution of the electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) cataloging workflow at a large research library, from the era of print to the present day, with emphasis on the challenges and opportunities of harvesting author-supplied metadata for cataloging ETDs. The authors provide detailed explanations of the harvesting process, creating code for the metadata transformations, loading records, and quality assurance procedures.

Download Full-text

Campus partnerships advance both ETD implementation and IR development

Library Management ◽

10.1108/lm-09-2013-0093 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 35 (4/5) ◽

pp. 398-404 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yuan Li ◽

Sarah H. Theimer ◽

Suzanne M. Preate

Keyword(s):

Implementation Process ◽

University Libraries ◽

Content Type ◽

University Relations ◽

Scholarly Communications ◽

University Archives ◽

Electronic Theses And Dissertations ◽

Syracuse University ◽

Theses And Dissertations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to articulate the Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) implementation process at Syracuse University. It will describe the development of a collaborative partnership between the Graduate School and the Syracuse University Libraries (SUL) that advances open access and the scholarly communication issues among graduate students, the proposed plan for a dissertations and theses retrospective digitization project which will continue to strengthen the partnership between University Archives, university relations, and the SUL. It could also serve as an inspirational point for other institutions. Design/methodology/approach – This case study documents the successful strategies that were used to advance scholarly communications education efforts on campus and ETD implementation using an institutional repository. Findings – Partnerships, flexibility, and creativity are essential to a successful initiative. Originality/value – Sharing successful stories is crucial in our rapidly developing field. Although each institution is different, we all have things we can learn from each other and adapt to our own environment. The important lessons here are taking opportunities, building partnerships, being flexible, and creative to ensure the initiative's success.

Download Full-text