[LIS-Forum] Open access to electronic theses soon to be commonplace-JISC

Mailing List Admin mailman at ncsi.iisc.ernet.in
Wed Feb 22 13:21:57 IST 2012


From: Shalini Urs shalini at isim.ac.in
Date: Tue Feb 21 08:29:35 IST 2012

Open access to electronic theses soon to be commonplace Doctoral theses 
can attract significant attention when made openly accessible in 
electronic form according to the respondents of a sector-wide survey of 
information professionals.

The JISC-funded survey gives a clearer picture of progress toward 
electronic
thesis deposit in the UK, and how universities are achieving it.
Open access to electronic theses soon to be commonplace : JISC
<http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jisc.ac.uk%2Fnews%2Fstorie
s%2F2012%2F02%2Ftheses.aspx%3Futm_source%3Dfeedburner%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26
utm_campaign%3DFeed%253A%2Bac%252FuabG%2B%2528JISC%2BNews%2BWeb%2BFeed%2529&
h=KAQFmMMOiAQGycYjP42ihY_GFbH7G6TPj7DJQb35hCb7JWg>

-----
Abstract of the Report :

Sharing knowledge and research outputs is critical to the progress of 
science and human development, and a central tenet of academia. The 
Internet itself is a product of the academic community, and opening access 
to that communitys most important body of research, doctoral theses, is 
both a logical and an inevitable development. Progress toward open access 
to electronic theses has been slow in the UK. Much has been written on the 
perceived barriers and practical/infrastructural considerations that might 
explain this, but a comprehensive picture of that progress, and obstacles 
to it, was lacking. In 2010, a survey of policy and practice in UK HEIs 
was conducted by UCL (University College London) Library Services 
(commissioned by the Joint Information Systems Committee, JISC) to address 
this very issue. Incorporating inputs from 144 institutions currently 
awarding doctoral degrees, the work provides the first clear and detailed 
picture of the status of open access to doctoral research in the UK. The 
mission of the UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE) is to promote and 
support the interests of graduate education, and this it does through 
dissemination of best practice and intelligence on emergent trends; 
helping to shape policy and practice for the benefit of the UK HEI sector. 
This report contributes to that mission by bringing to the memberships 
attention the results of this important work by UCL Library Services; a 
collaboration between UKCGE and the authors of the original work, it sets 
out the policies and practices that emerged from the survey and also 
considers what has been learned about the perceived barriers to the 
implementation of open access to electronic theses. The 2010 survey has 
enabled, for the first time, a differentiation to be made between barriers 
that are real and those which are unfounded and/or yet to be properly 
validated. At the same time, the work highlights the progress made in 
certain critical areas, as well as those that require our greater 
attention. A positive picture emerges for the UK on the adoption of the 
electronic thesis, with the majority of HEIs surveyed expected to be 
providing open access to their theses in five years time. A more detailed 
picture also emerges regarding the primary reasons for requests to 
restrict access to theses, some of which, notably, apply only to 
electronic (not print) theses. This has necessarily given rise to new 
policy developments. There is positive evidence also of collaboration 
among HEIs to provide an efficient and robust service for accessing 
electronic theses; pooling their resources and expertise either in the 
development of their institutional repositories or in operating a joint 
service. The key driver of open access to electronic theses is the 
opportunity for UK HEIs to showcase their research outputs to the widest 
possible audience and enhance their impact. There are no reliable means as 
yet to measure this impact, but there are encouraging early indications 
that electronic doctoral theses attract significant attention when made 
openly accessible. Open access to electronic theses may therefore indeed 
accelerate the sharing of knowledge and the progress of scientific 
discovery and human development.

Read the full report : Read the report 
<http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1339905/>

  <http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1339905/>
---
Dr. Shalini R.Urs
Executive Director and Professor
International School of Information Management
University of Mysore
Manasagangotri
Mysore - 570006
Phone :  + 91 821 2514699
Fax      :  +  91 821 2519209
www.isim.ac.in
ISiM - Management School of IT. Technology School for IM



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