Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations http

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations http: //www. ndltd. org Croatia - May 1999 Edward A. Fox Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA fox@vt. edu

NDLTD Project Team PIs: Ed Fox - Computer Science (fox@vt. edu) John Eaton - Graduate School (eaton@vt. edu) Gail Mc. Millan - Library (gailmac@vt. edu) GRAs: Constantinos Phanouriou - Computer Science Paul Mather - Computer Science

A Digital Library Case Study FDomain: graduate Project: education, research Networked Digital FGenre: ETDs=electroni Library of Theses c theses & dissertations & Dissertations FSubmission: (NDLTD) http: //etd. vt. edu www. ndltd. org FCollection: http: //www. theses. org

ETDs Got Your Interest? ETD Web Site http: //www. ndltd. org/ Graduate Students U. Laval Media Singapore AM Chronicle of Higher Ed. National Public Radio NY Times. . .

What are the long term goals? F 400 K US students / year getting grad degrees are exposed / involved F 200 K/yr rich hypermedia ETDs that may turn into electronic portfolios F Dramatic increase in knowledge sharing: lit. reviews, bibliographies, … F Services providing lifelong access for students: browse, search, prior searches, citation links

Student Prepares Thesis or Dissertation NDLTD Literature Computer Resources Research

Student Defends and Finalizes ETD My Thesis ETD

Student Gets Committee Signatures and Submits ETD Signed Grad School

Graduate School Approves ETD Student is Graduated Ph. D.

Library Catalogs ETD and New Students Have Access to the New Research WWW NDLTD

Status of the Local Project F Approved by university governance Spring 1996; required starting 1/1/97 F Submission & access software in place F Submission workshops for students (and faculty) occur often: beginner/adv. F Faculty training as part of Faculty Development Initiative F Over 2000 ETDs in collection

Universities (>50) + Institutional Members: FCoalition for Networked Information (CNI) FCommittee on Inst. Coop. (CIC) FDiplomica. com FDissertation. com FNational Library of Portugal FUNESCO

How does this relate to UMI? F 1987 UMI workshop to explore ETDs F Support letter for US Dept. of Ed. proposal F Steering and technical committee membership F Pro. Quest Direct pilot of scanning works started 1/1/97 F Collaborating on: – – accepting electronic author submissions standards (e. g. , representation), research

ETD Initiative (and UMI) Students Learn about DL, EPub TDs become more expressive Universities UMI N. Amer. (T)Ds are accessible, archived Global TDs become more accessible, archived

Access Approaches F Goal: Maximize access and services, e. g. , by encouraging: F UMI centralized services F Our distributed service: Dienst, Z 39. 50, . . . F Regional services (e. g. , Ohio. Link) F Local servers with browse, search From local catalogs to local archives F WWW robot indexing and search services –

Why might your university want to be involved? F To improve graduate education / better prepare your students F To unlock university information F To save money for students and for the university / improve workflow F To build an important digital library supported by SURA, FIPSE

How can your university get involved? F Select – – planning/implementation team Graduate School Library Computing / Information Technology Institutional Research / Educ. Tech. F Send us letter, give us contact names F Adapt Virginia Tech solution – – Build interest and consensus Start trial / allow optional submission

Contact Our Project Team Video Tape E-mail etd@ndltd. org Phone Call Visit

Convene Local Planning Group ETD

Build Local ETD Site ETD Workshop/Training Digital Library Policies Inspection/Approval

Type 1 Members University Requires ETDs F Adobe Acrobat and/or SGML tools F Automated submission & processing F Archive/access through UMI, (OCLC, ) Virginia Tech, . . . F (Local) WWW site, publicity F (Local) Assistance provided as requested: email, phone, listserv(s)

Type 2 Members University Agrees to Require ETDs F Like Type 1 but set date not reached F Usually has an option or pilot F May: wait for new AY; start with all who enter after; … F Build grass roots support – – Advisory committee: representative? expert? Champions to spread by word of mouth Approval: Senates, Commissions, Deans, Students Publicity to reach community

NDLTD Members, Types 3 -7 F 3. Part of university requires ETDs F 4. University allows ETDs F 5. University investigating, has pilot F 6. University consortium joins: – CIC (Big 10 coordinating body) F 7. Non-university organization joins – CNI (Coalition for Networked Info. )

Support Services Developed F WWW site with > 300 Mb, CD, videotape F Automated submission system (UNIX, msql, WWW scripts for grad school & library) F Student guidelines, style sheets, multimedia training materials, FAQs, press info F SGML and XML DTDs for ETDs F SGML to HTML (web generator) F La. Te. X, Word templates, converters

SPIRE Visualization

Support Offered F Software, documentation, tech support F Email, listservs (etd-l@listserv. vt. edu, eval, -grad, -library, -technical) F Donations: Adobe, Microsoft F Evaluation: instruments, analysis F (Temporary storage / archiving; aid - in setting up an int’l service & archive) F http: //scholar. lib. vt. edu - solutions/statistics

Peta. Plex F Parallel computer / storage utility for scale of 1000 to 1, 000 gigabytes (terabyte/petabyte) F Knowledge Systems Incorporated will supply VT-Peta. Plex-1 with 2. 5 terabytes, > 100 processors, high speed backbone connection F High-performance help with NDLTD “superstore” available to

Relationship with publishers F Concern of faculty and students that still wish to publish books or journal articles, voiced: campus, Chronicle, NPR, Times F Solution: Approval Form gives students, faculty choices on access, when to change access condition; use IPR controls in DL F Solution: by case, work with publishers and publisher associations to increase access – – AAP, AAUP AAAS, ACM, ACS, Elsevier, . . .

Some responses from publishers F ACM: need to acknowledge copyright F Elsevier: need to acknowledge copyright F IEEE-CS: endorse initiative F ACS: After first publication, can release F Textbook publishers: different market, manuscript significantly reworked F General: restricting access to local campus will not cause any problems

Future Work F Working with publishers to increase level of access as much as possible F Interoperability tests among universities and with UMI to provide integrated services F Study with testbed that emerges, to improve information retrieval, browsing, interface, and other types of user support F Evaluation, improving learning experience, spread to worldwide initiative, sustainable support and coordination