<font><font face="trebuchet ms,sans-serif">[Forwarding from Nicola Yeeles. </font></font><div><font><font face="trebuchet ms,sans-serif"><br></font></font></div><div><font><font face="trebuchet ms,sans-serif">Also see the Slideshare summary,</font></font></div>
<div><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/dr_tinabarnes/electronic-theses-in-the-uk-conf-presentation-1">http://www.slideshare.net/dr_tinabarnes/electronic-theses-in-the-uk-conf-presentation-1</a>
</font></div><div><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">the full report,</font></div><div><font><font face="trebuchet ms,sans-serif"><a href="http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1339905/">http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1339905/</a></font></font></div>
<div><font><font face="trebuchet ms,sans-serif">and the project home page.</font></font></div><div><font><font face="trebuchet ms,sans-serif"><a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/etheses/">http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/etheses/</a></font></font></div>
<div><font><font face="trebuchet ms,sans-serif"><br></font></font></div><div><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><font>--Peter Suber.]<br></font><br></font><div class="gmail_quote"><div lang="EN-GB" link="blue" vlink="purple">
<div class="h5"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><b>Open access to electronic theses soon to be commonplace</b><u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"> <u></u><u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">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. <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">The JISC-funded survey gives a clearer picture of progress toward electronic thesis deposit in the UK, and how universities are achieving it. <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">The respondents to the survey were library and repository staff from 144 higher education institutions – and their responses suggested that 81% of their organisations will be providing open access to doctoral theses in five years time. <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Neil Jacobs, programme director at JISC, said: “Doctoral theses are important records of research. Many of them are already openly accessible via repositories and the UK EThOS Service, which most UK universities have joined. The resulting high visibility benefits both researchers and universities, and suggests that electronic theses will have a significant role to play in accelerating sharing our knowledge in the future.”</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">This publication was a joint venture between UKCGE, and UCL Library Services, based on a <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/etheses/" title="(external site)" target="_blank">JISC project by UCL Library Services</a>.<u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Tina Barnes, senior research fellow at the <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/" title="(external site)" target="_blank">University of Warwick</a>, is one of the authors of the report. She said: “The move to electronic theses is a very positive development that wholly supports the academic principle of sharing knowledge for the common good and for the advancement of science and human development.” <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Paul Ayris, director of <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/" title="(external site)" target="_blank">UCL library services </a>and co-chair of the DART-Europe partnership, said: “DART-Europe provides access to the full-text of over 280,000 Open Access research theses from 403 European universities in 20 countries. Open Access to such a critical mass of blue skies research is good for research and good for the researcher<a name="135a47f08cab191b_135a04982c39230a__GoBack"></a>.” <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">The report shows there are a number of reasons why researchers may not make their theses available electronically, but the principal reason may be the inclusion of sensitive material. <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Concerns regarding third-party copyright, plagiarism and restrictions on future publications are having little impact on access so far. <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">The report also suggests that theses need to be preserved over the long term - something that the British Library service, <a href="http://ethos.bl.uk/" title="(external site)" target="_blank">EThOS</a>, originally a JISC project, aims to do. <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif"> </span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><u></u> </font></p></div></div></div><p class="MsoNormal">
<font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif">Nicola Yeeles | Public Relations Officer | JISC T 0117 331 0658 | M 0778 990 3148 | E <a href="mailto:n.yeeles@jisc.ac.uk" target="_blank">n.yeeles@jisc.ac.uk</a><u></u><u></u></font></p>
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