Working Group on Electronic Theses and Dissertations
For the past several months a group of CUL staff have been meeting to discuss issues related to the management of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). ETDs are one of the important core collections within eCommons, and there are a variety of issues in play, including matters related to processing and cataloging ETDs (which are being addressed by a group in LTS), but also questions of policy that require communication with other stakeholders on campus such as the Graduate School, students, and faculty.
One area of controversy has to do with whether providing open access to ETDs in an institutional repository reduces opportunities for publication of subsequent work based on the ETD. Our group has been considering how best to support the intellectual property interests of student authors while also providing convenient and timely access to ETDs. So far, we’ve provided the Graduate School with a draft document to use in discussions with the Directors of Graduate Studies, and hope to arrive at some mutually agreed upon policies for managing ETDs.
The members of the working group are: Dianne Dietrich, Peter Hirtly, Eileen Keating, Oya Rieger, David Ruddy, John Saylor, Tracey Snyder, Gail Steinhart (coordinator), and Kizer Walker. Please don’t hesitate to contact me (Gail) with any questions or comments.