Early Results from the Council of Graduate Schools Study of the Bepress/UMI Online Submission Application ETD Conference September, 2005 Delphine Lewis UMI Dissertations Publishing

Publication Nearly 700 institutions submit theses and dissertations on a regular basis. Over 55,000 new dissertations and Masters theses submitted annually. 2 million citations in the Dissertation Abstracts database extending from 1861 to the present. Over 1.7 million titles available in full text.

The Changing Environment Over 80 institutions submit some or all of their dissertations and Masters theses in digital format through various delivery means. FTP, downloads, CD-ROM, attachments.

Why ETDs Professional Training Fluency in information technology is required for professional activity Scholarly Communication On-line submission and publication is becoming the norm across all disciplines

The Changing Environment UMI Dissertations Publishing began working with Berkeley Electronic Press in late 2003 to distribute a web- based application to facilitate submission and administration of ETDs. Submission software is made available to graduate schools or other appropriate entities at no charge.

The Changing Environment In 2003, the Council of Graduate Schools agreed to conduct a survey of students submitting manuscripts and of the administrators who control the sites.

The Questionnaire Questions used to rate the ETD submission process – Ratings from 1, Very Difficult, to 5, Very Easy Questions to solicit opinions on statements about the process – Opinions rated from 1, Strongly Agree, to 5, Strongly Disagree

The Questionnaire Open ended questions where authors and administrators could suggest steps to be added or deleted from the submission process and to provide additional comments

The Questionnaire The first survey was conducted without institutional or discipline identifiers The second survey used institutional and discipline identifiers

Survey Results Preliminary results indicate that the online submission application provides authors with a simple, but effective, means of submitting electronic documents for publication. Interesting avenues for further research are also suggested.

Survey Results Recommendation of software to others by field: Business 88% Education 80% Engineering 81% Life Sciences 63% Physical Sciences 86% Social Sciences 62% Humanities 42%

Survey Results Ease of reformatting by field: Somewhat–Very Easy Neither - Nor Business % 0% Education % 15% Engineering % 5% Humanities % 25% Life Sciences % 5% Physical Sciences % 0% Social Sciences % 10%

Survey Results Ease of reformatting by field: Somewhat - Very Hard No Response Business % 0% Education 0 - 5% 15% Engineering 8 - 3% 32% Humanities % 8% Life Sciences % 11% Physical Sciences % 21% Social Sciences % 14%

Survey Results - Authors Questions about copyright and a general uncertainty about manuscript distribution. It appears that authors had a less than adequate understanding of their rights as authors or their responsibilities as researchers who use materials created by others. Obtaining permission to use previously copyrighted material was another area where students were unclear of their responsibilities.

Survey Results – Authors Difficulties of reformatting Particularly evident in Humanities students where 42% of Humanities students found reformatting very difficult while the majority of Business and Education students found it relatively easy.

Survey Results – Authors Difficulties of reformatting Questions concerning reviewing reformatted documents and correcting submissions garnered minimal responses from all authors. Were authors so unfamiliar with the submission software or with PDF that they were reluctant to review and correct their submissions?

Survey Results - Authors Inclusion of supplementary materials Almost 75% of authors who submitted manuscripts did not respond to the question. We assume that these authors did not submit additional electronic materials. We might then want to ask, when they began writing the dissertation, did those authors envision the document as a digital document with all its attendant functionality or as a simple paper document in digital form?

Survey Results - Authors Questions for further research: Is instruction in information technology part of professional training? Has the department or graduate school established formal standards of information technology fluency?

Online reformatting help provided through links: Native Formats to PDF DocMorph PDF Zone PS to PDF Babinszki Distiller Ghostscript PS2PDF PStill TeX/LaTeX to PDF LaTeX2PDF PDF-LaTeX GhostScript PDFTeX dvipdfm

Additional instruction to be provided through tutorials: Creating a PDF File Word PDF Maker Print to PDF Modify a PDF File Set Document Properties Page Numbering Insert/Delete Pages Rotate Pages PDF Navigation Add/Nest Bookmarks Add Page Link Edit a Link Add Multimedia Add Movie Clip Add Sound Clip

Survey Results – Administrators More than half of the institutions stated advantage of electronic submission process was convenience, time and money saved for students, less storage space for bound copies. Several schools indicated benefits of incorporating digital technologies.

Survey Results - Administrators 80% found creating an account easy to do. Two-thirds found sending the thesis or dissertation easy to accomplish. Over 60% agreed that online technical help was excellent.

Survey Results - Administrators Suggested area of improvement: Digital document review

Survey Results - Administrators Delphine Lewis UMI Dissertations Publishing , ext. 3271