1. Open access to digital theses Sally Rumsey Bodleian Libraries

2. The rise and rise of digital theses 1.On the UK agenda since mid-1990’s 2.Digital theses now becoming ubiquitous 3.Repositories set up by institutions 4.Search and aggregation services 5.Previously difficult to access

3. Concerns 1.Plagiarism 2.Prior-publication 3.Copyright complexity 4.Culture change However…

4. More than ‘nice to have’ 1.Simplifies access to thesis problem 2.Evidence of research intensity of university a)Reputation b)Ranking c)REF statistics d)Publicity 3.Requirement to deposit  For eg: Edinburgh (since 1 September 2005), Glasgow (since session 2007/2008), UCL (since 2008/9 academic session

5. “MIT Thesis Collection Tops 30,000” DSpace@MIT contains selected digital theses and dissertations from all MIT departments dating as far back as the mid-1800s. Since 2004, all new Masters and Ph.D theses have been added to the collection after degrees have been awarded. MIT's DSpace contains more than 30,000 theses. Theses in this collection have been scanned … or submitted in electronic format by thesis authors. Since 2004 all new Masters and Ph.D. theses will be scanned and will be added to this collection after degrees are awarded Freely available to read online http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

6. Services to promote and find open access digital theses UK: Ethos (Search across 250,000+ theses and order full text quickly and easily) – http://ethos.bl.uk Index to Theses – Includes links DART Europe (> 220,000 theses) – www.dart-europe.eu Australia: Trove (> 45,000 PhD) – http://trove.nla.gov.au US – individual institutions Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) – www.ndltd.org

7. Usage 1.Theses constantly comprise the most item types in ORA top 10 accesses & downloads 2.Most downloaded ORA item Oct 2011 Thesis: "The Predicament of the Learner in the New Media Age” 3.Hits from Facebook, Wikipedia

8. Open access theses at 1.DPhil., M.Litt., M.Sc (by Research) are required to deposit print & digital copies 2.Digital copy deposited by the author in ORA http://ora.ox.ac.uk 3.Digitisation project 4.As many digital theses as possible are made open access 5.Maximum visibility and dissemination for Oxford research