C W Rensleigh: IMPLEMENTING AN ELECTRONIC THESES AND DISSERTATIONS (ETD) INITIATIVE WITHIN THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION LIBRARIES

3. The RAU ETD Pilot Project

After the second meeting of the Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) workgroup it was decided to launch a pilot project. Following is a brief discussion of the pilot project implementation plan.

Phase 1: Compile budget for the pilot project

The first phase of the implementation plan was to compile a budget for the pilot project. The budget reflected the financial implications concerning the hardware, software and personnel requirements. As this was a pilot project the capital layout was very small, less than R15 000.

Phase 2: Get go-ahead from Top Management

The second phase was to submit the budget and implementation plan to the university management and to get the go-ahead. The go-ahead was given and the pilot project was launched.

Phase 3: Send joining letter to the NDLTD

The next step in the implementation was to send an introduction letter to Virginia Tech (Prof. Edward A Fox) indicating that the RAU would like to join the NDLTD project. The letter is a standard template that is available on the NDLTD Website. There are a number of different joining possibilities:

The RAU decided to go for the second category (The university will in future require ETDs). Once the introduction letter was send to the NDLTD the free software courtesy of Virginia Tech was downloaded. The software to convert the documents into PDF, Adobe Acrobat version 5, was purchased.

Phase 4: Start awareness campaign

The next phase of the pilot project was to make students and lecturers aware of the project. This was done on a faculty, department and student bases. Three departments (Chemistry, Computer Science and Psychology) were nominated to take part in the pilot project. Other departments were encouraged to take part.

Phase 5: Configure the Web server

This phase of the project consisted of the procurement of the hardware (server and additional memory), the configuring of Linux as the operating system and the loading of the Website. Once the Website was up and running it was connected to the RAU campus Internet infrastructure.

Phase 6: Update the RAU General Regulations

This phase entailed the identification and amendment of the applicable regulations and submitting the required amendments to the RAU Senate for approval. Only three regulations were effected (Regulation A.130.1, A.131, A.133). The senate approved the suggested changes and the amendments were printed in the General Regulations.

Phase 7: Setup the Web-based user interface

The Webpages were customised to reflect the RAU specific information, procedures and policies. This included the loading of the different departments as well as all the different masters and doctoral degrees that are applicable to the RAU. The copyright notice as well as the RAU logo were loaded onto the Website.

Phase 8: Archiving of the Theses and Dissertations

In this phase the internal Library procedures including the archival procedure was developed. The procedure details the internal Library workflow pertaining to the receiving of the theses and dissertations into the Library and giving access to users as well as the archival process. The Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) will be archived on DVDs and stored in the Library archive.

Phase 9: Generate ETD creation guidelines

During this phase guidelines for the creation of Electronic Theses and Dissertations were formulated. The documents give guidance to the students and study leaders on aspect of ETDs such as:

In addition to the guidelines, a submission document was created that the student needs to complete with the submission of the final, examined theses or dissertation. The form is used as a control mechanism by the Library when the documents are converted and loaded into the ETD database. In addition to the information that is needed by the Library, the submission form contains a declaration section whereby the student declare that the content of the thesis or dissertation is a true/final version of the examined document and that all the required amendments originating from the examination were made.

Phase 10: Load Theses and Dissertations into the Web database

During the first round (at the end of the first semester 2001) only 7 Electronic Theses and Dissertations were submitted by students. The second semester delivered 55 ETDs, a total of 62 for 2001. During the first semester of 2002 50 ETDs were submitted. Currently there are over 400 ETDs available. The Collection Development and Management Department‘s cataloguing section created a bibliographic record for each of the theses and dissertations. Once this has been done the loading of the database commenced. This process entails the conversion of the documents from the submission format into the PDF format. Each file had to be opened and converted. This is a very cumbersome process.

Phase 11: Marketing of the pilot project

This phase tried to increase the awareness of the ETD initiative. Meetings were held with the heads of Faculty Administration where the pilot project were discussed and promoted. A paper that promoted the RAU ETD initiative was delivered at the 2nd annual conference on World Wide Web applications (Rensleigh 2000).

Phase 12: Make available for use

Once the data was loaded into the database the Website was ready to be used. Although it is used only as part of the pilot project, not as an operational information resource.

Phase 13: Evaluate the pilot project

At the end of March 2002 the evaluation of the pilot project began. The various processes and procedures were examined and evaluated. The identified issues/concerns were classified according to the following:

Information Technology consideration

The pilot project free of charge Website software (used to manage the Electronic Thesis and Dissertations database) has a newer version of the software with additional functionality. In addition the existing system does not make provision for a backup facility. The current server (upgraded desktop) has served its purpose as a pilot project server but is not adequate for a production system and should be replaced. A proper server will have to be procured. The budget for the necessary hardware and software (capital) came to R 103 171 with an operational budget of R 8 208.

ETD submission process

The pilot project has indicated that the conversion process from the approved file formats (MS Word, WordPerfect, etc.) to the final PDF format is too cumbersome and labour intensive. It was suggested that the Adobe Acrobat conversion software is made available on campus and that the students convert the file themselves and that the submission regulations be amended so that the files must only be submitted in the final format which is PDF. This will eliminate the cumbersome and labour intensive conversion process.

The additional licences for Adobe Acrobat is plus minus R450 per licence. If the software is made available at the following points: Academic Departments (41), Faculty Offices (6), Centre for Distance Learning (1) and the postgraduate computer laboratories (2) the financial implications will be R22 250. In addition, documents containing information on how to use the conversion software will have to be made available to the students at the various points.

Document availability

The current process makes only the abstract freely available on the Internet. The full document is only available to the RAU staff and students on campus. Access is gained via personnel/student number and password. With the submission process two paper based unbound copies are submitted which are then bound by the RAU Bindery and made available on the open shelves which in turn are used by the Inter Library Loans Department (ILL). It was debated that the submission of the paper based copies should fall away. The conclusion was that the procedure should stay in place as many students (third world country) do not have access to computers and the Internet at home and that these students can then at least check out the bound copies to take home for study.



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