Open Access – Part IV (Electronic Theses and Dissertations)

Universities are highly responsible for developing new theories through innovative research studies in all around the globe. Students and scholars are putting their best efforts to produce new facts and principles in these centres of higher studies. In India we have around 350 universities and every year almost 12000 PhDs are being produced by these universities. Avoiding duplication of research work is a serious matter of concern to all nations.

Innovations in ICTs become a boon to avoid duplication as well as utilization of these studies. An electronic submission of these dissertations and theses are known as ETDs. ETDs giving possibilities to incorporate new technologies and multimedia contents for conveying research outputs in more attractive and interesting way. ETDs are playing a major role in avoiding duplication and also forcing extensive utilization of these resources. I am recollecting an incident occurred couple of years ago in a department of a university (deliberately hiding the name) where two scholars were worked on same topic for around a full year. The university authority came to know about the duplication of this topic when it was discussed in a council meeting for registration. This happened in a department where two scholars and their guides worked on the same topic for a year of so. It happened in a same session, in the same department. Now one can imagine the state of duplication in the inter universities research studies. Though, Information and Library Network Centre (INFLIBNET) in India has been putting best of its efforts to provide updated listing of PhD theses with the help of UGC’s declarations note of every individual theses which they have started receiving few years back only. The Centre is also trying hard to give national guidelines for ETDs to the Government. ‘Vidyanidhi’ project is an excellent example of ETDs in India. Still implementation of ETDs at national level is cut throat need of the hour.

Words in against of ETDs:

Many of the universities are not in favour of providing their research outputs (Dissertations and Theses) on public domain. Even few universities do not have listing of research works on their websites and any other form.

Words In favour of ETDs:

On these research works national money has been involved (salaries of a guide and subscription of information resource being paid by Government i.e. UGC, AICTE or other national agencies which is public money). Therefore, outcome of these universities must be available to all citizens of the country free of cost. Sharing of these resources would encourage the more productive and quality research works.

Following is the listing of few databases on ETDs available on public domain via the Internet. Many of these databases from this list provide fulltext and few covers abstracts and bibliographical information.

Africa South of the Sahara: Topics: Dissertations and Theses on Africa

An extensive list of Internet sources for obtaining dissertations and theses on Africa-related topics.

American Historical Association: Directory of History Dissertations

A searchable directory of history dissertations that have been completed or that are currently in progress in the United States and Canada since 1882. This directory is the merger of two previous online publications, Dissertations in Progress and the Directory of Completed Dissertations.

American Indian in Graduate Studies Database

Includes all theses and dissertations containing at least one chapter on American Indians accepted between 1890 and 2002 by institutions located in the United States and Canada as well as selected Mexican research universities.

Australian Digital Theses Progarm

A national collaborative distributed database of digitised theses and dissertations produced by the postgraduate research students at Australian universities. Also includes some New Zealand theses. The ADT program is designed to improve access to, and enhance transfer of, the research information contained in theses by providing a full text version available from the desktop via the web. The retrieval is enhanced by the inclusion of metadata tags in the documents which are given a higher weighting by the more sophisticated search engines.

British Library Thesis Service

Information on locating and obtaining British theses dating mainly from 1970 to the present.

Caltech ETD database

http://etd.caltech.edu/

The Caltech ETD database is a series of web pages and perl scripts that interact with a MySQL database. These scripts provide a standard interface for web users and researchers. ETD authors, graduate school and library personnel to enter and manage the files and metadata related to a collection of electronic theses and dissertations.

CRL Catalog (Center for Research Libraries)

CRL holds an extensive collection of dissertations from outside the U.S. and Canada, and will order titles not held if requested by Rutgers or any other member institution. The Dissertations subset of the catalog can be searched separately.

CityU Theses Online

CityU Theses Online (CityUTO) provides online access to the abstracts and tables of contents of CityU research postgraduate theses and taught postgraduate dissertations available in the Library, dating back to 1990. The full text of all research postgraduate theses and some taught postgraduate dissertations is also available online to CityU staff and students.

Dissertations & Theses Collection (DTC)

Dissertations and Theses Collections (DTC) is an online union collection of Hong Kong postgraduate students’ doctoral and master dissertations and theses indexed in the online catalogues of seven university libraries in Hong Kong.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations in the Humanities: a directory of online references and resources

This site serves as a clearing-house for online information related to electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) in the humanities. The site's most important feature is a directory of most (maybe not quite all) of the ETDs that are currently in progress in the various disciplines that comprise the academic humanities. Among its other uses, I hope the material available here will be of aid to graduate students who are faced with securing approval and support for an ETD of their own. Audiences also include faculty who want to make informed decisions about supervising an ETD, as well as librarians, administrators, and academic publishers.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations available at NCSU Libraries

Since 1997, students have been able to submit an electronic version of their thesis or dissertation. On April 22, 2002, electronic submission became required. Electronic NC State theses and dissertations are accessible in the catalog as well as from this page.

E-thesis – electronic publications at the University of Helsinki

This site contains doctoral dissertations and other publications from the University of Helsinki. All of these full-text publications are freely accessible via the Internet.

ETDs at Brigham Young University

An ETD (Electronic Thesis or Dissertation) is a digital document suitable for machine archives and worldwide access. It may incorporate such features as enhanced graphics, sound, and animation. In addition, ETDs enable users to perform comprehensive searches using words, phrases, or symbols. Graduate Studies and the Harold B. Lee Library make all ETDs easily available over the WWW.

etd@IISc (etd AT Indian Institute of Science)

This is the digital repository of Theses and Dissertations of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. You can search, browse and access theses and dissertations from this collection. This repository has been developed to capture, disseminate and preserve research theses of Indian Institute of Science. It complements ePrints @ IISc, the research publications repository of IISc. Total number of theses in etd@IISc: 327 in the month of November, 2008.

etds@vt

Search the title pages and abstracts of Electronic Theses and Dissertations that have been approved by the Virginia Tech Graduate School since 1995.

General Business Resources: Dissertations and Theses

RU Libraries Business Subject Research Guide.

Links to sources for dissertation lists related to business and to organizations that offer awards, grants, and prizes for Doctoral proposals and dissertations in business-related areas.

INFLIBNET - Union database of Theses

Theses database covers the bibliographic Metadata of Doctoral Theses submitted to 238 Universities/Institutes in India. It has over 2,19,074 unique records from all subject areas. This Data is contributed by participating Universities and we have collected more data from various reliable sources, university announcements etc. The database contains information pertaining to name of the researcher, title of the thesis, name of the guide, university name and year of award. The records are regularly being updated from different sources.

New Jersey Environmental Digital Library (NJEDL)

A searchable collection of environmental information from New Jersey's government agencies; research institutes; academic departments; and non-profit and non-governmental organizations. Includes information on Master's theses, Doctoral dissertations, and Undergraduate Honors theses.

NDLTD

The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination and preservation of electronic analogues to the traditional paper-based theses and dissertations. This website contains information about the initiative, how to set up Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) programmes, how to create and locate ETDs, and current research in digital libraries related to NDLTD and ETDs.

OAIster

Searchable collection of freely available, previously difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources including electronic dissertations and theses.

OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center

The ETD Center is a free, online database of Ohio’s masters and doctoral theses and dissertations from participating OhioLINK member schools. It contains the abstract for all included theses and dissertations. The full-text is also available if it was submitted. The ETD Center is freely accessible worldwide to anyone interested in searching, viewing, and downloading the theses and dissertations published in Ohio. Using a standard Web browser, users can search the database using basic keyword searching. Authors, university affiliation, and abstracts are all indexed.

OpenDOAR: Directory of Open Access Repositories

A searchable list of repositories that archive electronic dissertations and theses.

Österreichische Dissertationsdatenbank

A searchable database of Austrian dissertations; some full-text.

PhdData: the Universal Index of Doctoral Dissertations in Progress

An open academic community effort providing a searchable database of Doctoral dissertations in progress around the world. This site holds a database of doctoral dissertations in progress around the world. The site is an open academic community effort to avoid duplications in doctoral dissertations and Create the ultimate meeting place for researchers.

Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR): E-Theses

A registry of freely accessible electronic archives for theses and dissertations. Archives are listed alphabetically with additional access by country.

The Electronic theses and dissertations system

National Central Library (NCL) is the national depository library of theses and dissertations. Ever since the Ministry of Education entrusted the NCL of this responsibility, the NCL has proceeded to put together original paper versions of theses and dissertations as well as preserve them and enable their access to our public readers. The NCL further developed theses and dissertations abstracts database, established online information file system, fulltext database, etc. in order to promote an integrated portal service of theses online information.

The Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The Graduate School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill began to accept dissertations and theses electronically for graduation in the spring of 2006. Paper and electronic submissions will both be accepted through November 2007. For those graduating in May 2008, electronic submission is required and only electronic documents will be accepted.

The University of Tennesse - Electronic Theses and Dissertations

UT thesis and dissertation

Theses Canada

A searchable central access point for Canadian theses. Coverage begins with 1965.

University of Florida (UF Theses and Dissertations)

Find records of UF Ph.D Dissertations and Master's Theses in the UF Library Catalog-- both print and online (ETD's -- Electronic Theses and Dissertations)

University of Kentucky Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The University of Kentucky offers all students submitting a thesis or dissertation the option of completing an electronic document (an ETD) instead of the traditional bound paper volume. The ETD satisfies all requirements of the Graduate School.

UNESCO Clearing House on Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Electronic thesis and dissertation policy clearinghouse from UNESCO, featuring database of institutions, experts, and materials supporting and disseminating ETDs.

Vidyanidhi Digital Library, University of Mysore Indian ETD Collection

Vidyanidhi (Meaning 'Treasure of Knowledge' in Sanskrit) is India's premier Digital library initiative to facilitate the creation, archiving and accessing of doctoral theses. Vidyanidhi is an information infrastructure, a digital library, a portal of resources, tools and facilities for doctoral research in India. Vidyanidhi is envisioned to evolve as a national repository and a consortium for e-theses through participation and partnership with universities, academic institutions and other stake holders. Vidyanidhi enhances access to Indian theses and enlarges the reach and audience for Indian doctoral research works.

Washington State University Research Exchange

The WSU Research Exchange is a digital repository; a system to store digital information and its descriptive metadata.

West Virginia University Electronic Theses and Dissertations

West Virginia University has implemented a policy that all master's theses and doctoral dissertations are to be submitted electronically. This means that WVU no longer will accept paper copies of theses and dissertations. Electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) contribute to worldwide graduate education and unlock the under utilized results of graduate education for the scholarly community. The Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Initiative at WVU has several purposes, including helping students in their careers, helping other learners and researchers, and making available many scholarly works that are now inaccessible, such as theses that are only available through inter library loan.

Worldwide ETD Search

A global index of freely available electronic theses and dissertations, provided by major ETD collections around the world.