Toulouse School of Graduate StudiesTheses and Dissertations

• ETDs - Why We Do them

– We at UNT believe that electronic theses and dissertations enhance the availability of research and creative work done by UNT students and increase the visibility of research and creative activities undertaken at our campus.

– Since August 1, 1999 all dissertations, Theses, and Problems in Lieu of Thesis must be presented to the Toulouse School in electronic form for archiving.

Toulouse School of Graduate StudiesTheses and Dissertations

• ETDs - Why We Do them

– The ETD project at UNT was begun in 1997, with a study by an ad hoc committee. The committee’s conclusion was that electronic archiving would likely make access to dissertations and theses easier, more rapid, and more economical, that digital dissertations require less space to store than paper documents, and that digital dissertations have portability advantages and may be more environmentally friendly than paper documents.

Toulouse School of Graduate StudiesTheses and Dissertations

• ETDs - What We Provide Students

– Theses and dissertations must now be deposited with the graduate school in Adobe PDF format. To assist in creating documents that will print to PDF we now offer templates in Microsoft Word 6/95, Word 97, and LaTeX. You may download these from the ETD Website. We expect to offer templates in WordPerfect soon.

– Basic instructions for document creation and filing are found in the university thesis manual, Preparation and Filing of Dissertations, Theses, and Problems in Lieu of Thesis in the Toulouse School of Graduate Studies.

Toulouse School of Graduate StudiesTheses and Dissertations

• ETDs - What we Provide Students

– We have recently written a set of instructions for using Adobe Acrobat. This document is available for download from the ETD Website and will ultimately be included in the thesis manual.

– Our Information Science Graduate Lab exists to serve all graduate students and is able to provide some assistance with document creation. Our Center for Media Production is also able to provide help for a nominal fee.

Toulouse School of Graduate StudiesTheses and Dissertations

• ETDs - Availability Options

– Our students have two options for making their ETDs available through the UNT Electronic Theses and Dissertations archive.

– Option 1: The first and recommended option is to make the thesis or dissertation freely available on the Worldwide Web. This option parallels our practice with print documents, which has always made theses and dissertations available through interlibrary loan and microform.

Toulouse School of Graduate StudiesTheses and Dissertations

• ETDs - Availability Options

– Option 2: The second option is to make the document available only to UNT students, faculty, and staff, and to on-campus library patrons. This option addresses concerns of students and book and journal publishers about prior publication. We are currently reviewing this option, which again parallels an option in place for print documents.

Toulouse School of Graduate StudiesTheses and Dissertations

• ETDs - The Online Archive

– Our archive is located on a Windows NT server as part of the online catalog. It is partly maintained as a FrontPage Web, but its basic structure and browser accessibility are determined by software from Innovative Interfaces, Inc. Librarians can control the content of the records but not the form. Overall display format, form of the MARC records, and other display characteristics are built into the software.

Toulouse School of Graduate StudiesTheses and Dissertations

• Archiving ETDs - What We Hope For

– UNT ETDs may be accessed via the UNT Libraries’ Web, but at present the collection is searchable only through the online catalog. As the archive grows, our Libraries hope to add additional search capability and a more sophisticated browser.

– We have been keeping usage statistics since September 2000. These tell us that our archive is being used at a rate of approximately 3,500 visits per month. While most current users of the archive come from our campus community, we hope to see much more off-campus use as the archive grows.