EThOSnet Spring Newsletter, May 2008
Since the last newsletter a lot has been going on within the EThOSnet Project. The UK Theses Digitisation Project is now up and running, and with an encouraging number of UK universities moving towards electronic deposit of theses, EThOS is now on track for a “soft” launch in September 2008. Details of this will be released nearer the time. If you are attending the ETD Conference (Aberdeen 4th to 6th June) you will be able to see a full demonstration of the system there.
A major revision of the EThOS Toolkit will be announced shortly, containing the essential information and advice that you will need in order to participate.
EThOS Demonstration at ETD 2008
Don't miss the ETD 2008 Conference from the 4th - 7th June where you'll be able to see a full run-through of the EThOS system from request to download plus interesting discussion on the background of the project, harvesting of theses, how the search functionality works, the digitisation process, an outline of the business model and the IPR approach taken.
It will also gives delegates the opportunity to raise any questions/concerns they may have. To find out more information about how to register and attend, please check the ETD 2008 website: http://www.rgu.ac.uk/etd/home/.
See you there!
UK Theses Digitisation Project update
The UK Thesis Digitisation Project had originally anticipated digitising 5335 theses to ‘kick-start’ the EThOS system. Following competitive tender, that figure was increased to 20,000 theses involving supply from over 90 UK Higher Education Institutions.
The digitised theses will be loaded to the EThOS system so that they are available to users as soon as the system goes live in September 2008. The most frequently requested UK Theses supplied by The British Library over the recent past were selected so that the theses of most interest to researchers are available. Once digitized the PDFs generated will be available for return to the originating institution.
Thanks to the very generous funding by JISC, the only cost to a UK Higher Education Institution participating in the UK Thesis Digitisation Project is the transportation cost of sending the theses to The British Library in Boston Spa. All digitization costs and return transport is provided by the project.
Digitisation of the theses has now begun. If your institution has not yet been asked to supply your theses, please don’t worry. Digitisation will be ongoing through to the end of July so you will be contacted during that period. A contact email address for this project has been established so if you have any queries please contact us at uktheses@bl.uk.
Thanks are due to all the institutions involved with this project. With your help we have been able to ensure the smooth flow of theses to date and we look forward to working with those of you from whom we haven’t yet collected theses.
EThOS participation options for institutions
The aim of EThOS is to offer participation options which will allow any institution, regardless of size or number of theses produced annually, to take part. Four different participation options are available to institutions:
Open Access Sponsor – where the institution agrees to provide a contracted number of paper theses for digitisation, selected on-demand by researchers using the system. The institution contributes an appropriate sum to the maintenance of the system in advance of digitisation. Contribution levels are suggested in the toolkit. Contribution is determined by the institution’s JISC banding, and there are options available that should enable large and small institutions to participate on equal terms.
Associate Member Level 1 (Open Access) – where the institution supplies paper theses selected on-demand by researchers using the system, contributing retrospectively for theses digitised.
Associate Member Level 2 – where the first researcher to order the thesis is charged for the digitisation.
Associate Member Level 3 – where EThOS routes the researcher to the institution for supply.
Full details of each of the participation options, including costs, will be available shortly within the Participation Options section of the Toolkit.
EThOS and Plagiarism: update
The EThOSnet project has established links with the JISC Internet Plagiarism Advisory Service (JISC-iPAS) to identify ways of protecting theses made available via EThOS. JISC-iPAS provides the Turnitin and iThenticate services to the UK education community on licence from iParadigms.
These plagiarism services are in wide use across universities and colleges to support teaching and learning, where coursework is commonly uploaded to the iParadigms database. The services can be used to check that submitted work does not accidentally plagiarise other work as well as catch out deliberate cheats. In addition to providing these services where required, uploading e-theses to the database will provide protection against anyone subsequently plagiarising the theses.
EThOS itself has no ownership of the e-theses and does not, therefore, have the authority to carry out plagiarism checks itself – this lies at the institutional, award-granting, level. Aggregating e-theses, though, allows EThOS to act as a single point of contact with JISC-iPAS and single source of theses for uploading: EThOSnet and JISC-iPAS are working together to establish such a workflow. This is intended to save administrative effort at the institutional level and increase the efficiency of any plagiarism checks individual institutions may wish to make. The model deposit licence that ETHOS recommends be used to obtain agreement from thesis authors, covers submission to iParadigms.
Increasing thesis content within iParadigms will, in general, increase the effectiveness of checks for both teaching & learning and research purposes, and give greater value for money to institutions with institutional licences for JISC-iPAS services.
Getting in touch
Please contact the EThoSnet team if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.
EThOSnet Project
Tel. 0121 414 3918
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