Lehigh
Goes Digital with Dissertation/Thesis Submissions
For the first time, during Spring 2009, Lehigh doctoral and
master graduates will submit a digital copy of their
approved dissertation or thesis via the new electronic
thesis/dissertation program (ETD) initiated by Library and
Technology Services. The Lehigh ETD is a platform for
students and college coordinators to track the submission
and publication process. Electronic thesis/dissertation
submission programs are in place in many universities; this
is the first year for ETD at Lehigh.
The very
first dissertation to be submitted was from former Graduate
Student President Hannah Dailey who chose to do so when ETD
was optional and still in testing. Her PhD is in the
department of mechanical engineering with an emphasis on
bio-engineering. Of the eight other “early adopters,” most
were in engineering disciplines but one was submitted in
economics from Saudi Arabia, to test the system’s ability to
accept off campus and indeed international submissions.
The ETD
also facilitates the publication of graduates’ work by
ProQuest/UMI thus exposing cutting edge Lehigh
research to the world of scholarship via ProQuest
Dissertations and Theses (PQDT), a subscription database
held by libraries worldwide, and by open web access to the
citation and abstract of dissertations from the last two
years. PQDT time to publication is eight to twelve weeks,
much timelier than the paper submission process. The ETD
also supports the submission of supplementary materials in
multiple file formats so a particular student’s submission
might include her dissertation as well as an audio file,
datasets, or images.
ASA,
Lehigh's library catalog and WorldCat include cataloging
records and links to Lehigh dissertations (1997 to present)
or theses (2009 to present). ASA includes the complete
abstract with a link to the PDF of Lehigh dissertations and
theses. The dissertations will be searchable by department,
author, and key words in the title or abstract. ProQuest
permits a web search crawl of the most recent two years of
the PQDT database. This means that Lehigh scholarship will
be more visible on the web in Google and WorldCat search
results. and that students can add a link to their
dissertation or thesis in their CV.
LTS
staff are offering training, both on campus and online, and
drop-in sessions to assist students in converting their work
to PDF. Training sessions for declared graduates cover the
approved dissertation or thesis electronic submission
process from creating the student profile (account) on the
Lehigh ETD site, to converting the dissertation or thesis to
PDF, as well as help in understanding publishing and
copyright options available.
For
details about Lehigh ETD, see Dissertations and Theses:
Electronic Submission Guidelines for Masters and Doctoral
Students or from the Library home page under Guides,
Handouts>Research and Finding Guides & Tools>dissertations.
Links
in this story:
--Jean
Johnson
Article posted April 14,
2009
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