JISC

Background

The UK is currently well behind many other countries in providing full text electronic access to theses produced in its HE institutions. The EThOS Project intends within the 18 months of the project to address the issues relating to this and provide a working prototype for a national scheme.

Aims and Objectives

The purpose of EThOS is to deliver, a fully operational, easily scaleable and financially viable prototype UK e-theses online service, and supporting infrastructure, that will enable students, researchers and other end-users to search a UK Database of Theses (UKDoT) and to access, from the desktop, the full text, in secure format, of electronically stored theses, following selection from the UKDoT. It will also enable HE institutions, in partnership with the British Library to promote and increase usage of their theses output.

The specific objectives of EThOS are to:

• develop and implement a hybrid IT infrastructure combining a central host based at the British Library and a single search interface for all e-theses repositories;
• include HEIs with a wide range of administrative settings and subject interests;
• develop and integrate procedures to address all aspects of IPR, royalties and permissions related to theses, including digital rights management;
• develop and implement a dissemination and advocacy programme targeted at all key players in the production, submission, storage and dissemination of theses;
• develop a viable and sustainable business model (including, if deemed appropriate recommendations on fund-raising initiatives).

Project Methodology

EThOS is a multi-faceted project requiring a variety of methodologies across its eight  workpackages. Each workpackage will be led by one or (jointly) by two of the partner institutions, and the workpackage leaders will form a workpackage Project Management Group that will work in close collaboration with the Project Manager.

Some of the key issues to be addressed include:

• IT infrastructure
• Rights and permission procedures
• Dissemination and advocacy
• Business models

Outcomes

EThOS will provide the framework for a sustainable long-term service that will dramatically enhance access to, and use of the whole corpus of UK theses, which constitutes an essential part of the UK research output. EThOS will address the needs of a range of stakeholders in the research, learning and teaching communities by:

• Enabling users to locate all UK theses via one single web interface and access all those available for electronic delivery (whether born-digital or digitised) from the desktop will dramatically increase the visibility of UK theses beyond the small number of theses that get published or are supplied by the British Library Thesis  Service.
• The availability of a central host combined with a distributed operation will make it possible for UK theses, including those submitted in smaller HEIs without institutional repositories, to be electronically accessed and therefore widely disseminated.
• A one-stop-shop approach to accessing and viewing theses will reinforce the ‘UK Thesis’ brand, thus giving greater exposure to the UK research output - of which theses are an essential part - both domestically and internationally.
• Greater exposure of research graduate work will minimise duplication of effort and maximise cross-fertilisation between research programmes both domestically and internationally.
• The production of electronic theses will lead to higher quality and more sophisticated graduate research work both because of the promise of greater visibility and the possibility of using a wider range of media.
• Electronic access to theses will make it considerably easier for research and teaching staff to incorporate their use in teaching programmes targeted at both campus-based and distance-learning undergraduate and postgraduate students.
• Ease of access will be a great incentive for both students and researchers to use theses which they would not have otherwise chosen to consult because of the time and effort it would have necessitated.
• Greater visibility of graduate research work via both institutional and UK-wide web interfaces will be an excellent  means for UK universities to showcase their research output and promote their institutional brands both at home and abroad.

EThOS will deliver:

• a fully operational and scaleable prototype service that will ultimately allow users to search and access all indexed UK theses from one single interface in an open access environment
• the digitisation of ca. 2,000 theses from print and microfilms
• a start-up e-theses toolkit for institutions, including guidelines on software and other IT aspects, workflows, rights and permission procedures, and recommended best practices
• a business model for a sustainable, ideally free-at-point-of-use, service and the digitisation of all physical theses after completion of the project

The knowledge and experience acquired in the course of the project will be shared and discussed within the HE community through workshops and focus groups as well as progress and final reports, seminar and conference papers and articles.