Evolving in Collaboration: Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Workflows in North Carolina

Abstract

Thirty-seven colleges and universities in North Carolina offer advanced degrees, and most require a thesis or dissertation. The websites of thirteen (35%) indicate they accept or require electronic submission of dissertations and/or theses (ETD). How do these institutions handle the interdepartmental communication and collaboration needs of ETD programs? To begin answering this question, this study examines current practices among ETD administrators in North Carolina and in current national literature, paying special attention to communication, collaboration, workflows, and divisions of labor. The literature review surveys current (since 2003) library and higher education articles on topics related to collaboration, workflows, and divisions of labor in ETD programs. Then the authors use a brief web survey (sixteen questions) that was emailed to twenty-three individuals identified on institutional websites as being involved in the ETD program. Fifty percent of recipients completed the survey, and the results tend to support common themes found in the literature: ETD depositories require a great variety of skill sets and thus will involve multiple departments; libraries and graduate schools are primary players, but not exclusively, in ETD workflows; and communication and collaboration between departments are important from start to finish.

Adoption of institutional repositories for electronic theses and dissertations projects in Zimbabwe’s public academic libraries

“…Universities with ETD programmes require students to submit an electronic version of the thesis or dissertation to facilitate its upload. This means that for ETD programmes to succeed, "a variety of collaborative, managerial and preservation skillsets" (Perrin, Winkler & Yang 2015: 99) is required as ETDs transform the traditional practice of publishing TDs (Boock & Kunda 2009, Early and Taber 2010, Perrin, Winkler & Yang 2015, Yiotis 2008; the library has to increasingly work together with the graduate or research office, faculties and scholars. The graduate office is responsible for policy formulation regarding collection and deposit of ETDs to the library; it works closely with faculties and supervisors of TDs in ensuring that submission procedures are observed.…”

“…Standards facilitate indexing of the repository's contents by web search engines like Google, thereby enabling freely available global research through online OA databases (Swan 2009). It is important to note that institutional repositories have a long-term preservation objective (Lynch 2003) seeking to address future storage of information (Early & Taber 2010, Perrin, Winker & Yang 2015. Some libraries have instituted policies mandating deposit of both printed copies and electronic copies of TDs; others, for instance, Vanderbilt University during its pilot project, required electronic submissions from participating departments; the University of Kentucky offers an option to submit either print or electronic versions; while others have simply done away with print copies and only accept electronic copies (Yiotis 2008).…”

Painless Portal Partnerships: Collaboration and Its Challenges for Small Organizations

“…Numerous articles discuss collaborations between different-sized colleges and universities developed to provide access to scholarly materials such as theses and faculty publications. 25 But not only are participants generally large, the studies often focus on the particular issues relevant to management of these types of digital documents. Similarly, some articles discuss size disparities among partners in library-specific collaborations (like shared user privileges arrangements), but they focus on library management issues, and even small library partners often have a history of collaboration within regional systems (for metadata and interlibrary loans).…”

A complete system for publishing music-related ETDs

“…Starting in 1987 when the concept of ETDs was formed, theoretical literature and technological development began to speed up with the advancement of internet technology and online search engines (Fineman, 2004). Scholars of library and information science have widely and deeply discussed issues regarding ETD collaboration, discovery, metadata, system improvement, and preservation strategies ( Janick and McLaughlin, 2006;Song, 2007;Yiotis, 2008;Lippincott and Lynch, 2010;Early and Taber, 2010;McCutcheon, 2011;Stewart, 2012;Perrin et al, 2015). However, only a little literature has discussed music-related ETDs, mainly because the concept of ETDs, according to Fineman (2004), is generally "limited to providing better access to information, but not additional or better information" (p. 898).…”