|
EThOSnet news, October 2007
The EThOSnet project is making good progress towards the launch of the Electronic Theses Online Service (EThOS) in 2008 and we look forward to working closely with you.
EThOS aims
- To lead significant growth in the availability of e-theses though the dual approach of
- assisting UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) with the cultural and practical changes required in order to accept current and future theses in electronic form, and
- providing a service to digitise paper theses to meet demand from researchers.
- To be the central point of access to the full text of PhD theses from UK HEIs, in digital or not-yet-digital format.
- To provide the EThOS service and full text of theses free of charge to end-users (where the supplying HEIs support the Open Access model).
- To preserve the full text of e-theses via a national digital preservation programme.
A reminder that further details of the service and participation options are available at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/pub_ethosbp.aspx
New and future born-digital theses
Many institutions are well on the road to either voluntary or mandatory deposit of e-versions of PhD theses in the future. The EThOSnet team (info@ethos.ac.uk) is available to help with any queries you may have, and new material and updates to the EThOS toolkit will be announced shortly (http://ethostoolkit.rgu.ac.uk/).
Digitisation of paper theses
We expect to be able to confirm the exact costs of digitisation of paper theses, and hence the annual digitisation quotas for EThOS sponsors, before the end of 2007.
UK Theses Digitisation Project
Preparations for the separate (but related) JISC digitisation project are now well underway. The project details are at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/programme_digitisation/theses.aspx.
Theses will be selected for this project based on evidence of recent requests for them via the British Theses Service, and institutions holding popular theses will be contacted shortly with details of the project and how to take part. The digitised theses will be made available on the EThOS central hub and HEIs will also be welcome to have copies of them for their own repositories if they wish.
The cost of scanning these popular theses will be paid by the digitisation project, ie they will not count as part of the EThOS quota, and are in addition to the theses that will be digitised through EThOS Sponsor/Associate fees.
Key dates
The EThOS service year will run from August to July, beginning in August 2008. Secondary partners in the project and early adopters can expect some testing of the harvesting process and workflows for supplying and digitising paper theses some weeks earlier. Participants who have already set aside the subscription fee in the current financial year will be able to become early adopters and make their payment for 2008/09 after April 2008, and funds will be held securely until the end of the service year in July 2009.
Outline timetable for participants
November/December 2007 |
HEIs holding theses popularly requested from the British Thesis Service invited to take part in the UK theses digitisation project |
January to June 2008 |
Theses for the JISC UK Theses Digitisation Project requested by BL, from HEIs |
Mid 2008 |
Born-digital theses harvested from institutional repositories |
Mid 2008 |
Secondary partners and early adopters test digitisation workflow |
April to July 2008 |
Early adopter sponsor payments, or 3-year advance payments may be made if desired |
August 2008 |
Full EThOS service goes live, year 1 sponsor fees due |
December 2008 to March 2009 |
Sponsors’ digitisation quotas monitored and HEIs advised accordingly (capacity for additional digitisation work if demand is within quota, or need to make arrangements if demand exceeds quota) |
|
