Project Briefing for Spring 1998 CNI Meeting

Edward A. Fox, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
http://www.ndltd.org/           etd@vt.edu

Key Facts Related to Session

• Funding is provided by U.S. Department of Education (FIPSE)
• Support is provided by ACM, Adobe, Arbortext, CGS, CNI, CSGS, IBM, Microsoft, OCLC, SOLINET; new grants have been awarded / applied for / will be applied for in Australia / Russia / Hungary ...
• 50K/yr. works (mostly dissertations) go to UMI
• 400K/yr. students get masters or doctorate in US
• Virginia Tech requires electronic theses & dissertations (ETDs); a total of 23 universities worldwide will eventually also require submission
• ETDs seem to be accessed 10-100 or more times as much as paper versions; the most popular ETDs had over 9K / over 7K downloads of the PDF version!
• Students learn about electronic publishing and digital libraries through ETDs
• Preparing an ETD using PDF is easy and less expensive for students

Why You Should Attend This Session

• Everyone:
  • Since this is a classic CNI-type-project, with all the challenges
  • Since this will build an important national (international) resource
  • Since this will prepare future scholars and researchers for the Electronic Age
  • Since this will become an important vehicle for knowledge sharing
• University Personnel:
  • Since in the long term this can save you and your students money
  • Since this will make your research much more accessible world-wide
  • Since this should lead to higher quality and more expressive publications
  • Since this is a model project to see how "going digital" can aid your institution
• Publishers:
  • Since this will prepare your future authors to submit electronically
  • Since this will help your future authors understand copyright issues
  • Since this will supplement your publications with longer, multimedia works

---

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
or
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
or
Whither Graduate Scholarly Publishing?

Project Briefing for Spring 1998 CNI Meeting - Page 2 of 2

Discussion Questions Relating to Access and Archiving

• Options for Access
  • Through card catalogs
  • Through WWW search engines
  • Through a federated search system (see http://www.theses.org) or a distributed digital library (e.g., Dienst as in NCSTRL: http://www.ncstrl.org) with components based on local, state, regional, national, ... preferences
  • Through UMI's centralized services with Dissertation Abstracts
• Options for Archiving
  • By university
  • By state or regional organization (e.g., Monticello Electronic Library, CIC)
  • By national libraries or other government agencies
  • By for-profit organizations (e.g., UMI)
  • By not-for-profit organizations (e.g., OCLC)
• Technical Issues
  • Paper vs. Microfilm vs. Electronic
  • Costs, Economic Models
  • Migration of Media
  • Role of Standards vs. Rich Hypermedia / (Inter)Active Programs
  • Economic: Students, Universities, Access Providers, Archivers

Discussion Questions Relating to Publishing

• Copyright
  • What rights belong to students, journal publishers, book publishers?
• Right of First Publication
  • How are derivative works defined in this context?
• Electronic Rights Management
  • How can new tools/policies maximize a range of options from open sharing to various types of restrictions, in a sustainable situation?
• A New Genre for ETDs?

This handout in PDF format

webmgr@cni.org