Features and Uses of a Multilingual Full-Text Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) System Yin Zhang Kent State University Kyiho Lee, Bumjong You Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information National Online 2001, New York

Outline of Presentation Features of the KISTI ETD system Background of the system Multilingual support Full-text retrieval System structure Uses of the KISTI system General statistics of system use System users Users’ activities

Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) National information center for science and technology A research institute under Office of the Prime Minister Major functions Online S&T Information Service Database Construction Bibliographic & holdings information Full text (e.g., research reports, Journal Papers, and theses) Human resource and equipment data More than 20 databases for the public Computer Network Operation Establishment of National Digital Library

Background of the ETD System In 1997, two universities (KAIST/ POSTEC) began to accept ETDs In 1998, KISTI started to build a national digital library for ETDs Currently, most universities require students to summit ETDs for graduation In 2001, more than 20 universities will join this project KISTI plans to collaborate with Networked Digital Library for Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD, an international organization for ETDs)

Multilingual Support Issues on multilingual documents Most Korean ETDs consist of English and Korean Korean and Chinese are 2-byte languages (English is 1-byte) Each language needs to develop its own indexer for full-text KISTI ETD system provides Multilingual input/output for English, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese Multilingual retrieval Korean/Chinese word by word translation

Full-Text Retrieval In the Internet environment, ETD users require full- text service (not just bibliographic information) Two types of full-text retrieval systems Indirect access type Users first access abstract DB, and if they want full-text, system link to full-text DB Direct access type Users access full-text DB directly using query Korean ETD system provides direct access allows users to access DB and to retrieve data by page unit

Direct Full-Text Service Model Information Retrieval System Information Retrieval System Full-Text DB Query Text Filter Format Conversion Unified Viewer PDF MS Word LaTex

Structure Features Major components Conversion tool Full-text database Storage and retrieval engine Web interface The system focuses on Complete full-text retrieval Automatic indexing with ranking ability Page by page retrieval to reduce response time

Structure of Service System Bibliographic DB Image DB Full text DB Internet Web Gateway DVI Format DVI2TEXT Page Unit TEXT DVI/TIFF Viewer Document Client Scanner W/P file Thesis Bibliographic Info HWP/DOC/TEX Converter TIFF Format Inputer Bibliographic Doc KRISTAL-II

System Use: General Statistics Number of Hits of the KISTI ETD Website

Number of Visitor Sessions to the KISTI ETD Website

Users by Number of Visits to the KISTI ETD Website

Users’ Geographic Locations From the very beginning, the KISTI ETD system has attracted international users. In particular, from May to October 2000, the percentage of visitor sessions by international users ranged from 10.6% to 28.9%. These international users were from diverse countries. Topping the list were the United States, Germany, and Japan.

Users’ Domains Most users who visited the KISTI ETD system were from an educational domain (82.9% of hits; 70.0% of visitor sessions). Network and commercial domains were the next two major domains with which the user groups were associated. Users from these three domains contributed to 99.2% of the total hits and 98.2% of the visitor sessions among the users with an identifiable domain name.

Users’ Activities ActivitiesVisitor Sessions Search the database27628 Show table of contents20701 Show abstract11704 Show individual pages2838 Browse index2115 Retrieve full-text280 Display retrieval history274

Conclusions The system has seen a significant increase in use since May 2000, about one year after the system was put into regular service. The KISTI ETD system attracts users from many other countries and has become a part of the international networked digital library of theses and dissertations. This finding suggests possible ways the KISTI ETD system could better meet the needs of its audiences.

Conclusions (continued) At present, the majority of KISTI ETD users are affiliated with educational institutions. While most users of the system are one-time users, the system has begun to maintain a frequent user group in its second year in service. While users heavily request tables of contents and abstracts of ETDs during their search sessions, they use tables of contents more than abstracts. The two system features, page-by-page viewing and index browsing, are also widely used to assist users searching and selecting ETDs before loading the entire documents.