A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 E-thesis submission workflow issues Simon J. Bevan Information Systems Manager Cranfield University

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 ACTIVITIES Scope and Scale Silsoe Cranfield Shrivenham Bioscience & technology Agriculture, engineering & food technology Water & environmental management Land use & the environment Aerospace Engineering Industrial & manufacturing science Management Electronics & electro-optics Mechanical, materials & civil engineering Computing and IT Applied mathematics Defence management 10% 65% 25%

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 STUDENT NUMBERS Postgraduate 88% Undergraduate 12% Postgraduate 11% Undergraduate 89% Cranfield UniversityAverage of all other UK universities

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 E-theses & the Library EURILIA project Founder member of UTOG Involved in Index to Theses pilot for e- submission JISC/FAIR E-theses project Cranfield e-thesis submission

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Why is the University doing this? Why e-theses? Is it to ease submission process? Desire to go entirely electronic? –Save space? –Easier access? Is it to make research more widely/easily available? –To your University? –To everyone? Will e-thesis be copy of record? Will paper archive be maintained? Will e-submission be compulsory?

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Timescales How long does it take? Planning process Official channels –Committees –Build in possible delays Institutional culture Collective psyche

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Working group Who involved at Cranfield? Who are the stakeholders? –Library –Registry –Computer Centre –Press –Academic staff –Students (copyright permissions?) Who to lead? What issues need to be addressed?

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Infrastructure Technical –Platform/software What? Who pays? OAI –Formats –Conversion software –CD-writers –Templates/Master documents Non-technical –Training –Support –Official documentation Thesis guidelines Registry documentation

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Opportunity Re-engineer the whole process? Change referencing advice Recommend a single Word processing format Copyright for University

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Loading CD or direct student upload to holding area When to submit? Version control (dependent on submission method) When available live? –Chance for publication Metadata (thesis documentation page) Restricted thesis workflow –Increase in theses that are restricted? Running through plagiarism software

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Checking of e-copy Checking of references format Checking for copyright material (arguably more important if electronic) Checking for PDF problems Checking of security settings –Image only? –Full-text searchable?

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Cataloguing Extraction of MARC record from OPAC to upload to e-thesis server? Extraction of Metadata record from e-thesis server to upload to OPAC? Searchable fields in e-theses server OPAC linking to e-theses server

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Retrospective Do you want older e-theses available? Scanning issues –All –Title/Abstract/Content –Size of files

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Usage Justification –100x more likely to be circulated than print theses (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) –Access increased by 145,000% over printed counterparts (West Virginia University) E-measures –SCONUL data E-prints

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Cranfield workflow Various iterations of suggested submission procedure –E-submission up-front –E-submission final version –Compulsory –Research level only –CD-ROM submission – physical –DSpace Institutional progress –Teaching Committee (Feb 03) –Teaching Committee (Nov 03) –Faculty Boards (Feb 04) –Teaching Committee (Feb 04) –Senate (Mar 04)

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Main issues at Cranfield Quality thresholds for open access –Submission/access/publication IPR & Access Plagiarism Marking paper theses

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Conclusions (1) Pragmatic stepped approach (this is the first phase) Path of least academic resistance Continuing with paper storage Continuing with paper marking Final corrected version only Current submission process still stands

A Future for UK theses, University of London, Senate House, 22-Jan-2004 Conclusions (2) Be aware of timescales Strategy for moving from submission of e- theses to e-submission Ensure that infrastructure can cope with future submission strategy