EThOS
A CURL-BL Project to
Support e-Theses for UK Higher Education
Proposal
This proposal
for the Electronic Theses Online Service (EThOS)
Project is submitted jointly by CURL (Consortium of Research Libraries in the
British Isles) and the British Library, in partnership with Cranfield
University, the National Library of Wales, The Robert Gordon University, SHERPA
(consortium partner led by the University of Nottingham), the University of
Birmingham, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Glasgow (lead institution),
the University of Southampton and the University of Warwick.
David Allen,
Registrar and Secretary at the University of Exeter and Chair of the Executive
Committee of the Association of Heads of University Administration (AHUA), has
given his full support to the proposal on behalf of the AHUA.
All
communication concerning this proposal should be addressed to: Chris Bailey,
Director of Library Services, Glasgow University Library, Hillhead Street,
Glasgow G12 8QE (Tel: 0141 330 5637; Fax: 0141 330 3630; email: c.a.bailey@lib.gla.ac.uk).
Executive Summary
The purpose of EThOS is to deliver, over a period of 18 months, a fully
operational, easily scaleable and financially viable prototype UK e-theses
online service that will enable end-users, via one single web interface, to
access the full text, in secure format, of electronically stored theses after selection
from a UK Database of Theses (UKDoT). The service will enable HE institutions,
in partnership with the British Library, to ensure a much higher level of
national and international visibility for the UK postgraduate research output,
as well as its preservation in
perpetuity. In order to achieve this aim, EThOS will seek to meet five main
objectives:
1.
The development and implementation of a hybrid IT infrastructure
combining: (a) a central host, to be based at the British Library, for HEIs
wishing to have their theses stored centrally, whether for dissemination or
preservation purposes, or both; (b) the necessary interfaces for the British
Library to harvest data and metadata for the online supply of theses that are
stored in institutional or consortial repositories only; (c) a single search
interface of all e-theses repositories enabling users to search all theses
indexed in the UKDoT and to access all electronically stored theses from one
point of access whether they are stored on the central host or in institutional
repositories;
2.
The inclusion of HEIs with a wide range of administrative settings and
subject interests;
3.
The development and integration of procedures to address all aspects of
IPR, royalties and permissions related to theses, including digital rights
management;
4.
The development and implementation of a dissemination and advocacy
programme targeted at all key players in the production, submission, storage
and dissemination of theses, in particular: (a) academics and senior university
administrators whose involvement is crucial to secure a revision of submission
procedures; (b) information professionals in HEIs that wish to set up their own
e-theses management system within the framework of the UK e-theses online
service;
5.
The development of a viable and sustainable business model - based on a
cost-recovery basis and including, if deemed appropriate, recommendations on
fund-raising initiatives - that will meet the aspiration for the service to be
free at the point of use while also sustaining a digitisation programme
resulting in all UK theses being made available for electronic delivery;
In addition to the prototype service and the business model to underpin
it, EThOS will deliver a targeted programme of digitisation for ca. 2,000
theses from print and microfilms and a start-up e-theses toolkit to support the
set-up of institutional e-theses management systems within the framework of the
UK-wide online service.
The project budget
is estimated at £421,683. The contribution requested from JISC is £200,000, i.e. 47.43% of the total
budget. The remaining 52.57% of the costs will be met by CURL, which is
committed to contributing £50,000 to the project, and the partner institutions.
The EThOS project will build on the work achieved by the three FAIR
Programme e-theses projects – Daedalus, Electronic Theses and Theses Alive! –
as well as other FAIR projects focusing on the setting-up of institutional repositories,
often including e-theses, (e.g. SHERPA) and other related technologies such as
harvesting of metadata (e.g. HAIRST).
These projects, through their complementary activities and on-going
collaboration, both informally and formally via, in particular, the FAIR
Programme cluster system, have succeeded in providing HEIs with workable
technological and organisational solutions for the electronic production,
submission, management, storage and viewing of theses within institutional
repositories. However, some HEIs, for example smaller ones, may not be able to
make their theses available via institutional repositories, nor is the lack of
a single point of access helpful for users. Ultimately, the dissemination of UK
theses will be fully maximised only when end-users are able to search and
access them within an integrated and open access environment, through a single
web interface. It is the purpose of the EThOS project to deliver the prototype
for such a UK theses online service for all users of UK theses. EThOS will also
explore and recommend viable and sustainable business models - based on a
cost-recovery basis – that will meet the aspiration for the service to be free
at the point of use while also sustaining a digitisation programme resulting in
all UK theses being made available for electronic delivery.
The project is directly relevant to at least four of the seven current
areas of activities prioritised by JISC, as indicated in section I.1 of the JISC
Project Management Guidelines. EThOS aims to:
·
‘provid[e] access to online
information resources’: theses in non-digital format are notoriously
difficult to access and therefore under-used, while recent e-theses
developments abroad have shown that their use spectacularly increases with
electronic access. The number of requests for PDF files (mostly full-text) of
Virginia Tech e-theses and dissertations increased by 33 times in five years
from 221,679 in the year 1997/98 to 7,320,818 in the year 2002/03 (see http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/data/somefacts.html),
while the British Library Thesis Service currently supplies only 15,000 UK
theses a year.
·
achieve its aims through ‘collaboration
and partnerships’: this is a project which can only be collaborative, as the outcome must be a distributed yet
integrated prototype service whereby theses submitted in UK HEIs can be
searched and viewed from a single point of access to be provided by a central
institution-friendly host.
·
‘promot[e] effective use of
ICT’: theses constitute an excellent example of a distributed national
resource that will become easy to access when digitally provided through a
single interface.
·
enhance ‘support for research’ by
providing the research, teaching and learning communities with a single point
of access, from the desktop, to a national research resource that has so far
remained mostly untapped.
The purpose of EThOS is to deliver, over a period of 18 months, 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, via one single web interface:
o
to search a UK Database of Theses (UKDoT) – the term ‘thesis’ referring
to PhDs and other theses or dissertations submitted in UK HEIs for postgraduate
degrees by research;
o
to access, from the desktop, the full text, in secure format, of
electronically stored theses, following selection from the UKDoT;
·
HE institutions, in partnership with the British Library:
o
to promote and dramatically increase usage of their research output, of
which theses are an important part, by having their theses indexed in a
national online database and digitally available, in full-text and secure
format, via their institutional repositories and/or a UK-wide service provided
in partnership with the British Library;
o
to ensure the preservation in perpetuity of UK e-stored theses as well
as a much higher level of national and international visibility for the UK
research output.
In order to achieve its overall aim, EThOS will seek to meet five main
objectives:
1.
The development and implementation of a hybrid IT infrastructure
combining:
a. a central host,
to be based at the British Library, for HEIs wishing to have their theses
stored centrally, whether for dissemination or preservation purposes, or both;
b. interfaces for
the British Library to harvest the necessary data and metadata for the online
supply of theses that are stored in institutional or consortial repositories
only; (Note that in this context a consortium is a group of institutions
sharing one e-theses or e-prints repository.)
c. a single search
interface of all e-theses repositories enabling users to search all theses
indexed in the UKDoT and to access all electronically stored theses from one
point of access whether they are stored on the central host or in institutional
repositories;
2. The inclusion of
HEIs with a wide range of administrative settings and subject interests. The
selected partnership meets the following criteria, which are essential for the
successful implementation of the project:
a.
It is of a manageable size, while also being representative of the whole
HE community (e.g. CURL and non-CURL institutions; large and small
institutions; university and national libraries; a good geographical spread);
b.
It includes several libraries with expertise in the field of e-theses,
institutional repositories and digitisation, as well as a smaller number of
institutions with little or no such expertise in order to minimise the risks of
unreasonable assumptions being left unchallenged;
c.
It includes all the lead and some of the partner institutions of the
three e-theses FAIR projects to ensure that the expertise, skills and knowledge
these projects have acquired in this field directly feed into the setting-up of
the national e-theses online service;
d.
It includes institutions using different platforms (e.g. DSpace, Eprints
or neither) so that all the necessary technical options can be adequately
tested;
e.
It includes libraries that have already started to engage their
university senior administrators with the e-theses issue;
f.
It is capable of providing a critical mass of theses.
3.
The development and integration of procedures to address all aspects of
IPR, royalties and permissions related to theses, including digital rights
management.
4.
The development and implementation of a dissemination and advocacy
programme targeted at all key players in the production, submission, storage
and dissemination of theses, in particular:
a.
academics and senior university administrators whose involvement is
crucial to secure a revision of submission procedures;
b.
information professionals in HEIs wishing to set up their own e-theses
management system within the framework of the UK e-theses online service (see
toolkit for institutions);
5.
The development of a viable and sustainable business model (including,
if deemed appropriate recommendations on fund-raising initiatives) taking into
account that the service:
As shown in Section 2 of this document, EThOS is a multi-faceted project
requiring a variety of methodologies. These will be defined within the framework of each workpackage (see
Section 14 and Appendix B). Given the complexity of the project, each
workpackage will be led by one or (jointly) by two of the partner institutions,
and the workpackage leaders will form a Project Management Group that will work
in close collaboration with the Project Manager (see section 11). Additionally,
there will be significant horizontal, cross-workpackage activity to ensure
compatibility and consistency across a number of issues, including technical
platforms and business requirements. For example, technical teams working on Workpackages
2, 3 and 6 (central host, interfaces and toolkit) will work closely together to
ensure full compatibility of technical solutions. It will be the role of the
Project Manager to put both formal and informal mechanisms in place to ensure the
integration of all the different strands of the project and the implementation of
coherent solutions to project-wide issues.
These are some of the main issues that will need to be addressed:
·
IT infrastructure: interoperability with a number of different platforms
(D-Space, Eprints etc.); search interface design; nature of metadata required
as well as its creation and storage within the pre-existing pieces of software
used by the various repositories;
·
Rights and permission procedures: third party copyright; exploitation
rights; royalty payments; student’s right to embargo use of thesis;
retrospective permission and right to digitise existing physical theses;
updating of submission practices;
·
Dissemination and advocacy: promoting understanding of the issues and
proposed solutions, and securing the support of university senior
administrators and academics, both for the revision of submission procedures
and the implementation of the business model;
·
Business models: finding ways of offering the service free at the point
of use while running it on a cost-recovery basis and supporting a programme of
retrospective digitisation to ensure critical mass;
As indicated in Section 2.1 of this document, the term ‘thesis’ is
understood to refer to PhDs and other theses (e.g. MPhil) or dissertations
(e.g. MA, MSc) submitted in UK HEIs for postgraduate degrees by research. While
the service will be able to manage and supply all these different types of
theses, the primary focus, in the first instance, will be on PhDs.
While EThoS will focus on the development of a prototype supply service
for e-theses, it will also include a targeted programme of retrospective
digitisation in order (a) to secure a reasonable amount and diversity of
content for testing the system; (b) to explore
and resolve rights management and organisational issues connected with the
supply of retrospectively digitised theses. A more substantial programme of
retrospective digitisation to ensure critical mass and therefore sustainability
of the service will be costed in the course of the project as part of the work
on business models.
It is proposed that a sample of ca. 2,000 theses, including some
originating from the partner institutions, be retrospectively digitised with a
view to testing the system. Some theses will be digitised from print (ca. 400),
preferably using the JISC-funded Digitising Line book scanner based at the
University of Southampton (subject to availability of the equipment). Others
will be digitised by the British Library from its microfilmed collection of
150,000 theses.
E-born theses will be supplied by partners and will be chosen to present
various technical challenges (different
file formats, complex multi-file formats etc.).
As indicated in Section 2.1 of this document, a major element of the
service will be a database of UK theses, which users will be able to search in
order to select and locate all indexed theses as well as view those which
already exist in electronic format, whether born-digital or digitised. It is
hoped that the UKDoT will be a combination of the British Library‘s current
database of UK Doctoral Theses and of the Expert Information-owned Index to
Theses, which contains records for 480,000 UK theses with abstracts for the
majority of these records. The British Library is currently holding
negotiations with Expert Information for access to their records in the long
term and has already secured the use of up to 5,000 of their records to test
the EThOS prototype development.
As part of its remit for e-publications, the British Library is
currently developing, within the framework of its Digital Object Management
(DOM) project, the necessary systems to preserve British e-publications in
perpetuity. It is also committed to storing all UK theses that HEIs might wish
to deposit centrally in the BL DOM System for secure storage. It will be up to
each HEI to decide whether it will store theses (a) both locally and centrally
(locally for access to the items via the institutional web interface and
centrally for preservation purposes); (b) locally only (the assumption being
then that the institution will be responsible for dealing with the preservation
issue); (c) centrally only (if the institution does not wish to set up its own
e-theses or e-print repository). The project partners will also draw on
emerging lessons and services from the new JISC 04/04 digital preservation and
asset management in institutions programme and the Digital Curation Centre.
The crucial factors for a successful implementation of the project are:
ü close
cooperation between HEIs and the British Library;
ü technological
interoperability
ü sufficient amount
of content for project testing (and critical mass when the service is
operational)
ü resolution of
IPR issues and delivery of model licences
ü support from
university senior administrators and academics
ü a viable and
sustainable business model
The key deliverables of the EThOS project are:
ü 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
ü the digitisation
of ca. 2,000 theses from print and microfilms
ü 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
ü 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
ü Progress and
final reports
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,
articles and the e-theses start-up toolkit for institutions, all to be made
available on the project web pages.
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. The
impact it will have on the research, learning and teaching communities can be
summarised as follows:
·
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.
|
Stakeholder |
Interest / stake |
Importance |
|
HE teaching and research staff |
·
Greater visibility of their students’ graduate research output ·
Single online access point to locate all UK theses and access full
text e-theses ·
Enhanced use of graduate research output in teaching ·
Revision of regulations for the submission of theses |
High |
|
HE postgraduates |
·
Greater visibility of their graduate research output ·
Single online access point to locate all UK theses and access full
text e-theses |
High |
|
HE undergraduates and life-long learners |
·
Single online access point to locate all UK theses and access full
text e-theses ·
Enhanced use of graduate research output in learning programmes |
Medium |
|
Non-HE based researchers |
·
Single online access point to locate all UK theses and access full
text e-theses |
High |
|
HE senior administrators |
·
Revision of theses submission procedures ·
Support network (best practices etc.) ·
Promotion of institutional research output ·
Enhanced visibility for their institution |
High |
|
HE / BL information professionals |
·
Support network (best practices etc.) ·
Improved resource discovery ·
Improved document supply ·
Space saving |
High |
|
HE / BL IT staff |
·
Interoperability |
High |
|
Risk |
Probability (1-5) |
Severity (1-5) |
Score (P x S) |
Action to Prevent/Manage Risk |
|
Staffing |
1 |
3 |
3 |
Team work structure across a number of institutions; project and technical
documentation; most staff already in place; lead site with project management
expertise; |
|
Organisational |
1 |
3 |
3 |
Partnership agreement at start of project; project and workpackage
management structure embedded in partner institutions; |
|
Financial |
1 |
5 |
5 |
Commitment from institutions’ senior managers (see letters of support
and partnership agreement at start of project); |
|
Technical |
2 |
4 |
8 |
technical work spread amongst range of partners, so no single point of
failure; Redundancy (e.g. RAID); institutional support; |
|
External suppliers |
3 |
1 |
3 |
Evaluation; contracts; |
|
Software longevity |
1 |
3 |
3 |
Established and supported technology, on-going development commitment; |
|
Legal |
2 |
4 |
8 |
Use of professional legal expertise as recommended by JISC Legal; |
|
Lack of content |
1 |
5 |
5 |
Use of available digitised theses (already ca.100 within the
partnership); digitisation of 400 from paper and 1,500 from microfilms; |
|
Lack of community applicability |
1 |
5 |
5 |
Representative mix of project partners; |
The following
internationally recognised standards will be applied as and when necessary:
·
OAI-PMH v. 2.00 - Open Archives for Metadata
Harvesting
·
SOAP - Simple
Object Access Protocol
·
METS - Metadata
Encoding and Transmission Standard
·
Open URL
·
RDF Site
Summary 1.0 (RSS)
·
Qualified
Dublin Core
·
UK E-Theses
Core Metadata set (outcome of the three FAIR e-theses projects)
·
MARC21
·
Accessibility
standards for people with visual impairment
·
Digitisation of printed theses as greyscale master images at 300-400dpi
resolution in uncompressed TIFF format as a master format and PDF with hidden
text as a delivery format (following the Digital Library Federation’s ‘Benchmark
for faithful digital reproductions of monographs and serials’; see: http://www.diglib.org/standards/bmarkfin.htm)
The Open Archival Information System (OAIS) –
Reference-model-not-standard will also be taken into consideration.
The prototype service will greatly benefit from major
British Library investment in discovery, order, finance, e-storage, ingest,
preservation, security and DRM functionality and will make full use of best
practice developed as part of other JISC-funded projects such as SHERPA. Enhancements
to the most popular current repository software used in SHERPA and the UK HE
sector as a whole (Eprints and DSpace) will be developed in close conjunction
with the respective development communities, which partner institutions in the
EThoS project already have close relationships with (e.g. Southampton / EPrints
and Edinburgh / DSpace). Thus any development will be of the highest calibre,
interoperable with current specifications and standards, and sustainable beyond
the project timescale. The Digitising Line scanner is a world-class bookscanning
facility, the first of its kind in a European research library and builds on
the development work undertaken by Stanford University Library in collaboration
with 4digitalbooks and i2s.
The central host
will be using technologies for which licences have been paid by the British
Library. All the software and technologies developed by the project will be
open-source. All the standards that will be used and developed by the project
will be in the public domain. All the theses made available by the prototype
service will comply with IPR legislation, as recommended by Workpackage 5.
The project partners are:
|
·
The University of Glasgow (lead institution) ·
The British Library ·
Cranfield University ·
The National Library of Wales ·
The Robert Gordon University |
·
SHERPA (consortium led by the University of Nottingham) ·
The University of Birmingham ·
The University of Edinburgh ·
The University of Southampton ·
The University of Warwick |
The participation of the British Library and its commitment to running
the service in partnership with the HE community after successful completion of
the project will ensure that the service is less vulnerable to the pressures of
the commercial market than a service run by a private sector company. The
significant involvement of the national libraries will help to avoid major
financial burden being placed on users of the service, or force the sale of the
service to an unknown organisation.
The project will be managed by a full-time Project Manager based at the
lead institution, whose responsibilities are listed in the Workpackage template
(see Workpackage 1 in Appendix B), in partnership with a Project Management
Group comprising all the Workpackage leaders. The Project Management Group will
meet on a quarterly basis face-to-face
or, when necessary, via telephone and/or video-conferencing.
The Project Manager will be supervised by a Project Director, also based
at Glasgow University Library, who will chair the Project Board. The membership
of the Project Board will be as follows:
Project Director (Chair), Project Manager, 1 representative of CURL
institutions, 2 representatives of the British Library, 1 representative of
non-CURL institutions, 1 representative of SHERPA, 1 academic and 1
representative of the Association of Heads of University Administrators (AHUA).
The role of the
Project Board will be to oversee the project, endorse any proposed major
changes to the original work plan (subject to approval by JISC), represent the
interests of the project partners, advise the project team and contribute to maintaining a high level of visibility for the project
among the HE community. The Board is expected to meet at least three times over
a period of 18 months.
Details of the project team are provided in Section 14.
The partnership is
expected to seek support from the JISC Programme Manager in the following
areas: legal advice (see Workpackage 5); development of new standards (see
Workpackages 2-4); liaison with related projects other than the three e-theses
projects and SHERPA. Input from Stuart Dempster (CSR2 Programme Manager)
may be required in order to authorise (via the CSR2 board) use of the
Digitising Line scanner.
The project budget
is estimated at £421,683. The contribution requested from JISC is £200,000, i.e. 47.43% of the total
budget. The remaining 52.57% of the costs will be met by CURL, which is
committed to contributing £50,000 to the project, and the partner institutions.
Details of the budget are available in Appendix A.
Detailed Project Planning
In order to achieve its aims and objectives as defined in Section 2 of
this document, EThOS will need to implement eight workpackages (see details of
workpackages in Appendix B). The project team will include several members of
staff who have been actively involved with the three FAIR e-theses projects,
i.e. Electronic Theses [ET], Theses Alive! [TA] and Daedalus [DD] (see Appendix
D for contact details):
|
Workpackages (WP) |
WP leaders |
Project officers |
In partnership with |
|
1 Project management |
Chris Bailey, Project
Director (Glasgow / DD) |
Project Manager (to be appointed) |
All WP leaders |
|
2 Building of a BL-based central host with a single search interface |
Anthony Troman (BL / ET) |
|
·
Stephen
Pinfield (Nottingham / SHERPA) ·
Southampton (Eprints) ·
Richard Jones (Edinburgh /
DSpace / TA) |
|
3 Building of interfaces to harvest data from institutional hosts |
Hazel Woodward (Cranfield / ET) |
·
Paul Needham (Cranfield / ET) ·
Simon Bevan (Cranfield / ET) ·
Richard Jones (Edinburgh /
DSpace / TA) |
·
Anthony Troman (BL / ET) ·
Willian Nixon (Glasgow / DD) ·
Theo Andrew (Edinburgh / TA) ·
Southampton (Eprints) ·
Stephen
Pinfield (Nottingham / SHERPA) |
|
4 Implementation of a pilot programme of retrospective and current
digitisation |
Anthony Troman (BL / ET) |
|
Simon Brackenbury (Southampton
/ Digitising Line book scanner) |
|
5 Development and integration of rights and permission procedures |
Theo Andrew (Edinburgh / TA) |
Theo Andrew (Edinburgh / TA) |
·
Arwell Jones (NLW) ·
Anthony Troman (BL / ET) ·
Stephen
Pinfield (SHERPA) |
|
6 Production of a start-up e-theses toolkit for institutions |
Susan Copeland (RGU / ET / member of the NDLTD Board of
Directors) |
·
Andrew Penman (RGU / ET) ·
Richard Jones (Edinburgh /
DSpace / TA) |
·
Simon Bevan (Cranfield / ET) ·
Richard Milne (RGU / ET) ·
Ruth Jenkins (Birmingham) ·
Robin Green (Warwick) ·
Stephen
Pinfield (Nottingham / SHERPA) |
|
7 Development of business models (service and digitisation) for
long-term sustainability |
Chris Bailey (Glasgow / DD) and Anthony Troman (BL / ET) |
|
Mick Wilkin (BL) |
|
8 Dissemination and advocacy programme |
Ruth Jenkins (Birmingham) and
Robin Green (Warwick) |
|
·
Morag Greig (Glasgow / DD) ·
Arwell Jones (NLW) ·
Susan Copeland (RGU / ET / member of the NDLTD Board of
Directors) |
An independent evaluation study will be commissioned by JISC. However,
an evaluation process will be built into the work plan of each workpackage
whereby all developments are tested with users, including the partnership, the
wider information community, the HE community and individual end-users.
Additionally, quality assurance mechanisms will be built into the work
plan of each workpackage to ensure that the standards listed in Section 8 and
the relevant examples of best practice are strictly observed.
Some of the dissemination
work will be carried out by the Project Manager as a matter of course (e.g. project
web site, progress and final reports; see Workpackage 1). However, as it is
absolutely crucial for the project to be successful to secure institutional
buy-in from a variety of professional groups, in particular senior university
administrators and academics, it is proposed that the development and
implementation of the dissemination and advocacy strategy be the responsibility
of a working group (see Workpackage 8).
The project’s exit strategy will be two-pronged:
This will be an
integral part of the project (see Workpackage 7).
It will
demonstrate the prototype service and promote the start-up toolkit to a
targeted audience of academics, senior administrators and information
professionals outside the partnership.
Appendix A – Project Budget (YR1: January – December 05; YR2: January – June 06)
|
EThOS Estimated Budget |
JISC YR1 |
JISC YR2 |
JISC Total |
Partners YR1 |
Partners YR2 |
Partners Total |
Total budget |
|
STAFF (incl. on-costs) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
WP1 Project Manager Glasgow @ALC3/5 CONTRIBUTION from CURL |
£ 12,726.00 |
£ 6,363.00 |
£ 19,089.00 |
£ 33,333.00 |
£16,667.00 |
£ 50,000.00 |
£ 69,089.00 |
|
WP1 Clerical support Glasgow over 18 months |
£ 10,752.00 |
£ 5,700.00 |
£ 16,452.00 |
|
|
|
£ 16,452.00 |
|
WP2 Host developer BL Grade B (half contributed by BL) over 12 months |
£ 13,672.50 |
|
£ 13,673.00 |
£ 13,672.50 |
|
£ 13,673.00 |
£ 27,345.00 |
|
WP3 Project officer Cranfield over 8 months |
£ 15,000.00 |
|
£ 15,000.00 |
|
|
|
£ 15,000.00 |
|
WP4 Digitisation of 400 theses from paper (incl. hardware, software etc.) |
£ 19,578.00 |
|
£ 19,578.00 |
|
|
|
£ 19,578.00 |
|
WP4 Digitisation of 1,500 theses from microfilm (incl. hardware, software
etc.) |
£ 15,000.00 |
|
£ 15,000.00 |
|
|
|
£ 15,000.00 |
|
WP5 Project officer Edinburgh 5% FTE @ALC2 over 8 months |
£ 9,000.00 |
|
£ 9,000.00 |
|
|
|
£ 9,000.00 |
|
WP6 Project officer RGU at Research Assistant grade over 16 months |
£ 15,502.00 |
20,684.00 |
£ 36,186.00 |
|
|
|
£ 36,186.00 |
|
WP6 Project officer Edinburgh 3 days per week over 14 months |
£ 9,722.00 |
12,500.00 |
£ 22,222.00 |
|
|
|
£ 22,222.00 |
|
CONSULTANCY (incl. VAT) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
£ - |
|
WP2 Configuration for central host BL |
|
|
|
£ 6,000.00 |
|
£ 6,000.00 |
£ 6,000.00 |
|
WP5 Legal expertise |
£ 5,000.00 |
|
£ 5,000.00 |
|
|
|
£ 5,000.00 |
|
WP7 Business model expertise |
£ 5,000.00 |
|
£ 5,000.00 |
|
|
|
£ 5,000.00 |
|
STAFF TIME contributed by institutions (across all workpackages) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
£ - |
|
Birmingham 7% FTE @ALC5 and 15% FTE @ALC3 over 18 months |
|
|
|
£ 12,314.00 |
£ 6,157.00 |
£ 18,471.00 |
£ 18,471.00 |
|
BL 5% FTE senior manager, 50% Grade SB4 & retro-digitisation
support work |
|
|
|
£ 28,000.00 |
£14,000.00 |
£ 42,000.00 |
£ 42,000.00 |
|
Cranfield senior managers over 18 months |
|
|
|
£ 11,333.00 |
£ 5,667.00 |
£ 17,000.00 |
£ 17,000.00 |
|
Edinburgh 7% FTE @ALC5 and 7% FTE @ALC4 over 16 months |
|
|
|
£ 6,864.75 |
£ 2,288.25 |
£ 9,153.00 |
£ 9,153.00 |
|
Glasgow 5% @ ACL6, 10% @ALC5 and 20% @ALC3 over 18 months |
|
|
|
£ 17,137.00 |
£ 8,568.00 |
£ 25,705.00 |
£ 25,705.00 |
|
National Library of Wales 10 days at Band 4 (£34,712) |
|
|
|
£ 1,580.00 |
|
£ 1,580.00 |
£ 1,580.00 |
|
RGU 5% of senior librarian post and 5% of librarian post over 16
months |
|
|
|
£ 3,848.25 |
£ 1,282.75 |
£ 5,131.00 |
£ 5,131.00 |
|
Southampton bookscanner staff |
|
|
|
£ 1,500.00 |
|
£ 1,500.00 |
£ 1,500.00 |
|
Warwick 7% FTE @ALC5 and 15%
FTE @ALC3 over 18 months |
|
|
|
£ 12,314.00 |
£ 6,157.00 |
£ 18,471.00 |
£ 18,471.00 |
|
TRAVEL & SUBSISTENCE |
|
|
|
|
|
|
£ - |
|
Board (£3,000) & Management Group (£6,000) meetings |
£ 9,000.00 |
|
£ 9,000.00 |
|
|
|
£ 9,000.00 |
|
EQUIPMENT |
|
|
|
|
|
|
£ - |
|
BL PC with CD/DVD burner |
|
|
|
£ 2,000.00 |
|
£ 2,000.00 |
£ 2,000.00 |
|
Glasgow PC for Project Manager |
|
|
|
£ 1,000.00 |
|
£ 1,000.00 |
£ 1,000.00 |
|
Southampton bookscanner running costs |
|
|
|
£ 10,000.00 |
|
£ 10,000.00 |
£ 10,000.00 |
|
DISSEMINATION |
|
|
|
|
|
|
£ - |
|
3 workshops (travel and catering) for WP8 & final workshop
(£1,500) |
£ 5,000.00 |
£ 2,500.00 |
£ 7,500.00 |
|
|
|
£ 7,500.00 |
|
Travel for advocacy (£5,000), publicity material (£2,300) |
£ 4,867.00 |
£ 2,433.00 |
£ 7,300.00 |
|
|
|
£ 7,300.00 |
|
EVALUATION separately financed study; internal evaluation
costs incl. above |
|
|
|
|
|
|
£ - |
|
TOTAL |
£ 149,820.00 |
50,180.00 |
£ 200,000.00 |
£160,896.00 |
£60,787.00 |
£221,683.00 |
£ 421,683.00 |
Appendix B – Workpackages
|
Workpackages |
Month |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
|
1:
Project Management |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2: BL-based central host and search interface |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3: Interface
to harvest institutions’ data |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4:
Retrospective digitisation |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
5: IPR and
permission procedures |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6: Start-up
toolkit for institutions |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
7: Business
models (service & retro-digitisation) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
8:
Dissemination and advocacy |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Separate
independent evaluation |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Project start
date: 01-01-2005 Project completion
date: 30-06-2006 Duration: 18
months
|
Workpackage
(WP) Activity
& Responsibility |
Earliest
start date |
Latest
completion date |
Outputs (deliverables
& reports in bold) |
|
WP1:
Project management Leader: University of Glasgow Objective:
to ensure that all the strands of the project are managed coherently
and that all the project outcomes are delivered within the agreed deadlines
and budget |
01.01.05 |
30.06.06 |
The Project Manager will: ·
produce a work plan
based on the proposal ·
organise the project meetings (agenda, papers, minutes etc.) ·
manage cross-strand technical and organisational dependencies ·
manage the budget ·
produce bi-monthly progress
reports and the final
report ·
meet the reporting requirements of JISC and CURL ·
assist in the production of all key project documentation (including the toolkit) as and when necessary ·
develop the project web site ·
assist in the implementation of the dissemination and advocacy
programme in collaboration with the partners |
|
WP2:
BL-based central host with single search interface Leader: British Library in partnership
with the University of Edinburgh, the University of Southampton and SHERPA Objective: to set up a fully functional central host
service using standard British Library technical infrastructure components,
metadata developed by the EThOS partnership and content from the partner
institutions |
01.01.05 |
31.12.05 |
The central host
will: ·
accept, load and store e-thesis metadata and material sourced from remote
institutional host systems ·
accept, load and store standard format e-thesis metadata from
institutions which wish to supply their own content ·
support a one-stop-shop ‘identify and locate’ function – i.e. a single search interface
– for all UK theses users ·
support secure electronic delivery functionality for material held by
the central host ·
define procedures for generation and delivery of material in physical
formats ·
route orders to institutions for material held and supplied locally ·
investigate full text searching for digitised and e-theses ·
present abstracts to aid identification and location of material ·
administer rights, royalty and permission requirements and payments if
and where appropriate |
|
WP3:
Interfaces to harvest and gather institutions’
data Leader: University of Cranfield in partnership
with the British Library and the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and
Southampton Objective: to set up fully tested and functional
interfaces to harvest and gather metadata and content from institutional
hosts |
01.02-05 |
30.09.05 |
This workpackage will investigate, develop and test the interfaces needed to harvest
and gather metadata and content into the BL-based system for a range of
scenarios, including: ·
direct submission of metadata and content ·
OAI harvesting of metadata with and without upload of content via FTP
or other appropriate protocols ·
Dynamic cross-searching of distributed repositories employing Z39.50
and SRW/SRU or other web services ·
physical loading via DVD/CD etc. Developed interfaces will be integrated into the BL-based central host
system delivered by WP2 and tested against the partner and other institutional
hosts. |
|
WP4:
Retrospective digitisation Leader: British Library in partnership
with the University of Southampton Objective: to digitise 400 volumes of paper-based theses (bookscanning) and 1,500 volumes of microformed theses (microfilm scanning); to develop processes and inform the business model for a sustained programme of
digitisation |
01.01.05 |
31.12.05 |
The retro-digitisation
workpackage will deliver: ·
a representative sample of theses (400) digitised from paper and
sourced from partner institutions ·
a representative sample of theses (1,500) digitised from the British
Library stock of microformed theses ·
loading of the digitised set to the central host ·
costings and recommended processes for the digitisation of all UK
theses (to be fed into Workpackage 7) ·
a process to support the retrieval and digitisation of individual
theses not already digitised but requested by a user |
|
WP5:
IPR and permission procedures Leader: University of Edinburgh in partnership
with the British Library, the National Library of Wales and SHERPA Objective: to produce best practice procedures
related to rights, royalties and permissions prior to the development of the
national host service and the institutional toolkit |
01.01.05 |
31.08.05 |
This workpackage
will comprise three strands: 5a: IPR & Digitisation
(retrospective and on-going)
5b: Author IPR
recommendations
5c: End User IPR
recommendations
The group will
provide a report summarising
all the issues and recommendations (to be fed into the system) and will contribute
to the advocacy activities of WP 8 . External legal expertise will
be called upon, as recommended by the JISC legal service. |
|
WP6:
Start-up toolkit for institutions Leader: The Robert Gordon University in
partnership with Cranfield University and the universities of
Birmingham, Edinburgh and Warwick Objective: to support the set-up of an e-theses
system within an individual institution and its integration within the
UK-wide online service |
01.01.05 |
30.04.06 |
The toolkit will
include recommendations, guidelines and, when necessary, minimum requirements
for the following: ·
hardware for storage and delivery ·
software (DSpace, Eprints, others) incl. staff time / skills level ·
metadata ·
standards for linking with central host ·
digitisation ·
workflows for processes within the institution and for deposit in central
host incl. business models (Note that there will be a number of workflow
diagram scenarios depending on the state of institutional development in
e-theses and the different thesis submission systems.) ·
advocacy incl. culture change and the updating of institutional
regulations ·
procedures for IPR, royalties and permissions (from Workpackage 5) ·
preservation ·
advice on training authors in creation of e-theses ·
support network (mentoring institutions, useful contacts etc.) ·
recommendations for sustainable support and development of the toolkit |
|
WP7:
Business models (service & retro-digitisation) Leader: University of Glasgow and British Library (joint
lead) Objective: to produce viable and sustainable
business plans for the running of the service and for a post-project programme of retrospective
digitisation |
01.01.05 |
30.06.06 |
The workpackage will develop and recommend a viable and sustainable
business model (including, if deemed appropriate, recommendations on
fund-raising initiatives) taking into account that the service: (a) will be
run on a cost-recovery basis; and (b) will need to be underpinned by a
programme of retrospective digitisation to ensure critical mass. It will also
explore the possibility of delivering a free-at-the-point-of-use policy (as
long as it is compatible with a & b). External financial expertise may be
called upon. |
|
WP8:
Dissemination & advocacy Leader: Universities of Birmingham and Warwick
(joint lead) in partnership
with the University of Glasgow, the
National Library of Wales and The Robert Gordon University Objective: to prepare and pilot a template of advocacy
measures that will support users in persuading their institution to accept
digital submission of theses and to participate in UKDoT; to disseminate
information about UKDoT to appropriate target groups within HEIs to achieve
an awareness of UKDoT as a service; to disseminate information about the
EThOS project to relevant groups. |
01.01.05 |
30.06.06 |
The activities will include: ·
Literature
review on use of advocacy in cognate areas - e.g., e-theses, e-prints, e-journals
- to inform development of the advocacy template through identification of
successful and less successful methods and models ·
Identification
of institutional and human processes involved in progressing from a pre- to a
fully implemented e-theses environment and culture ·
Mapping of
possible institutional scenarios on the continuum from a pre- to a fully
implemented e-theses environment and culture ·
Mapping of
stakeholder groups to be covered by the advocacy and dissemination workpackage ·
Interviews
with stakeholder groups – e.g., administrators (and in particular with the
AHUA), academics, research students – in institutions with e-theses systems
and in ones without, to: (a) elicit perceptions on e-theses and UKDoT; (b)
identify positive and negative selling points for inclusion in the template ·
Production
of first version of template, dissemination to project partners and other
appropriate groups for review, and revision as necessary ·
Design and
production of publicity material: advocacy messages; institutional
requirements to set up e-theses; UKDoT material; scenarios demonstrating the
benefits of a successfully implemented service ·
Piloting of
template in selected institutions ·
Review of
template pilot, with revision as necessary ·
Build template into Workpackage 6,
start-up toolkit ·
Publicity and promotion of template ·
Conference / seminar presentations; providing input for relevant area of project web site |
Appendix C – Glossary
AHUA Association of Heads of University Administration
BL British Library
CURL Consortium of Research Libraries
in the British Isles
DOMS Digital Object Management System
DRM Digital Rights Management
EThOS E-Theses Online Service
FAIR Focus on Access to Institutional Resources (Programme)
FTE Full-time equivalent
FTP File Transfer Protocol
HE Higher education
HEI Higher education institution
ICT Information and Communications Technology
IPR Intellectual property rights
IT Information technology
JISC Joint Information Systems
Committee
MA Master of Arts
METS Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard
MPhil Master of Philosophy
MSc Master of Science
NDLTD Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
OAI-PMH Open Archives Initiative - Protocol for Metadata
Harvesting
OAIS Open
Archival Information System
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
RAID Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
SHERPA Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research
Preservation and Access
SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol
SRU Search & Retrieve URL Service
SRW Search & Retrieve Web Service
UK United Kingdom
UKDoT UK Database of
Theses
URL Universal Resource Locator
VAT Value added tax
WP Workpackage
Appendix D – Contact details
|
Theo Andrew |
Project Officer |
The University of Edinburgh |
|
|
Chris Bailey |
Director of Library Services |
The University of Glasgow |
|
|
Simon Bevan |
Information Systems Manager |
Cranfield University |
|
|
Simon Brackenbury |
Digitisation Projects Manager |
The University of Southampton |
|
|
Susan Copeland |
Senior Librarian |
The Robert Gordon University |
|
|
Robin Green |
Head of Information Services |
The University of Warwick |
|
|
Morag Greig |
Subject Librarian |
The University of Glasgow |
|
|
Ruth Jenkins |
Assistant Director, Learning and Research Support |
The University of Birmingham |
|
|
Arwel Jones |
Acquisitions Archivist |
The National Library of Wales |
|
|
Richard Jones |
Systems Developer |
The University of Edinburgh |
|
|
Richard Milne |
Systems Librarian |
The Robert Gordon University |
|
|
Paul Needham |
Electronic Information Specialist |
Cranfield University |
|
|
William Nixon |
Deputy Head of IT Services |
The University of Glasgow |
|
|
Andrew Penman |
Research Assistant |
The Robert Gordon University |
|
|
Stephen Pinfield |
Assistant Director of Information Services |
The University of Nottingham |
|
|
Anthony Troman |
Product Development Manager |
The British Library |
|
|
Hazel Woodward |
University Librarian |
Cranfield University |
End of Document