Early Results from the Council of Graduate Schools

Study of the Bepress/UMI Online Submission

Application

ETD Conference

September, 2005Delphine Lewis

UMI Dissertations Publishing

Publication• Nearly 700 institutions submit

theses and dissertations on a regular basis.

• Over 55,000 new dissertations and Masters theses submitted annually.

• 2 million citations in the Dissertation Abstracts database extending from 1861 to the present.

• Over 1.7 million titles available in full text.

The Changing Environment

Over 80 institutions submit some or all of their dissertations and Masters theses in digital format through various delivery means.

• FTP, downloads, CD-ROM, e-mail attachments.

Why ETDs

Professional Training• Fluency in information

technology is required for professional activity

Scholarly Communication• On-line submission and

publication is becoming the norm across all disciplines

The Changing Environment

• UMI Dissertations Publishing began working with Berkeley Electronic Press in late 2003 to distribute a web-based application to facilitate submission and administration of ETDs.

• Submission software is made available to graduate schools or other appropriate entities at no charge.

The Changing Environment

• In 2003, the Council of Graduate Schools agreed to conduct a survey of students submitting manuscripts and of the administrators who control the sites.

The Questionnaire

• Questions used to rate the ETD submission process– Ratings from 1, Very Difficult, to 5,

Very Easy

• Questions to solicit opinions on statements about the process– Opinions rated from 1, Strongly

Agree, to 5, Strongly Disagree

The Questionnaire

• Open ended questions where authors and administrators could suggest steps to be added or deleted from the submission process and to provide additional comments

The Questionnaire

• The first survey was conducted without institutional or discipline identifiers

• The second survey used institutional and discipline identifiers

Survey Results

• Preliminary results indicate that the online submission application provides authors with a simple, but effective, means of submitting electronic documents for publication.

• Interesting avenues for further research are also suggested.

Survey ResultsRecommendation of software to

others by field:Business 88%Education 80%Engineering 81%Life Sciences 63%Physical Sciences 86%Social Sciences 62%Humanities 42%

Survey ResultsEase of reformatting by field: Somewhat–Very Easy Neither - Nor Business 37 - 50% 0% Education 15 - 50% 15% Engineering 11 - 41% 5%

Humanities 8 - 17% 25%

Life Sciences 21 - 42% 5%

Physical Sciences 7 - 57% 0% Social Sciences 10 - 52% 10%

Survey ResultsEase of reformatting by field:

Somewhat - Very Hard No ResponseBusiness 0 - 13% 0%Education 0 - 5% 15%Engineering 8 - 3% 32%Humanities 0 - 42% 8%Life Sciences 5 - 16% 11%Physical Sciences 0 - 14% 21%Social Sciences 14 - 0% 14%

Survey Results - AuthorsQuestions about copyright and a

general uncertainty about manuscript distribution.

• It appears that authors had a less than adequate understanding of their rights as authors or their responsibilities as researchers who use materials created by others.

• Obtaining permission to use previously copyrighted material was another area where students were unclear of their responsibilities.

Survey Results – Authors

Difficulties of reformatting

Particularly evident in Humanities students

where 42% of Humanities students found

reformatting very difficult while the majority of

Business and Education students found it

relatively easy.

Survey Results – Authors

Difficulties of reformatting

Questions concerning reviewing reformatted documents and correcting submissions

garnered minimal responses from all authors.

Were authors so unfamiliar with the submission

software or with PDF that they were reluctant to

review and correct their submissions?

Survey Results - AuthorsInclusion of supplementary materials

Almost 75% of authors who submittedmanuscripts did not respond to the question.

We assume that these authors did not submit additional electronic materials. We might then want to ask, when they began writing the dissertation, did those authors envision the document as a digital document with all its attendant functionality or as a simple paper document in digital form?

Survey Results - AuthorsQuestions for further research:Is instruction in information

technology part of professional training?

Has the department or graduate school established formal standards of information technology fluency?

Online reformatting help provided through links:

Native Formats to PDF

• DocMorph• PDF Zone

PS to PDF• Babinszki Distiller• Ghostscript • PS2PDF• PStill

TeX/LaTeX to PDF• LaTeX2PDF• PDF-LaTeX• GhostScript• PDFTeX• dvipdfm

Additional instruction to be provided through tutorials:

Creating a PDF File• Word PDF Maker• Print to PDF

Modify a PDF File• Set Document

Properties• Page Numbering • Insert/Delete

Pages• Rotate Pages

PDF Navigation• Add/Nest

Bookmarks• Add Page Link• Edit a Link

Add Multimedia• Add Movie Clip• Add Sound Clip

Survey Results – Administrators

• More than half of the institutions stated advantage of electronic submission process was convenience, time and money saved for students, less storage space for bound copies.

• Several schools indicated benefits of incorporating digital technologies.

Survey Results - Administrators

• 80% found creating an account easy to do.

• Two-thirds found sending the thesis or dissertation easy to accomplish.

• Over 60% agreed that online technical help was excellent.

Survey Results - Administrators

Suggested area of improvement:

• Digital document review

Survey Results - Administrators

Delphine Lewis UMI Dissertations Publishingdlewis@umi.com1-800-521-0600 1-734-761-4700, ext. 3271