2015 Texas ETD Association/US ETD Association Region 3 Joint Conference

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2249.1/156769

Baylor University, Waco, Texas

February 26, 2015 – February 27, 2015

TxETDA is collaborating with the US ETD Association to offer its third regional conference. USETDA Region 3 members are especially invited to attend this conference, but all of those with an interest in ETDs, regardless of location are welcome. USETDA Region 3 includes the states of Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming.

TxETDA and USETDA aim to increase the knowledge of ETD professionals and enhance ETD operations by providing professional development opportunities and encouraging the sharing of best practices. Additionally, this conference provides unique opportunities to build bridges and engage in conversations between the graduate school and library around ETD-related issues.

The conference fee ($60 early bird; $70 regular registration) covers all sessions and some meals.

Visit the 2015 TxETDA/USETDA Region 3 Joint Conference homepage for additional information.

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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

ETD Program Implementation - An Overview
(2015-03-05) Hammons, Laura; Lyon, Colleen
Organized and facilitated by the TxETDA/USETDA Region 3 2015 conference planning committee, this workshop will use the ETD Lifecycle Management Guiding Documents as a foundation for preparing ETD program stakeholders and professionals for an ETD implementation initiative, as well ensuring they have foundational knowledge to understand and engage in conference activities and discussions.
Vireo 3.0 Training and Workshop
(2015-01-13) Steans, Ryan J; Larrison, Stephanie; Park, Kristi
In 2014, the Vireo Users Group worked with developers at the Texas Digital Library and Texas A&M University to implement feature requests and employ enhancements within the Vireo ETD Submission and Management software. Version 3.0 includes a wide array of new features which reflect the complex workflows of a wide range of universities. This training is intended to take experienced users of Vireo through the new features and provide them with hands-on experience that will enable them to consider how these features can work on their campus and improve the ETD experience for students, graduate schools and libraries.
Doubling Down Double Jeopardy: Electronic Theses and Dissertations
(2015-03-27) Newman, Carey
The 2015 TxETDA/USETDA Region 3 Joint Conference keynote address.
The State of ETDs in the Lone Star State: An Update for 2014/2015
(2015-01-13) Lyon, Colleen
Objective: To follow up on a 2009 survey regarding the status of ETDs at Texas institutions with more current information that can be used to guide program planning for the Texas Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association (TxETDA). Methods: Surveyed library and graduate school staff at 49 thesis or dissertation granting institutions in Texas during November and December of 2014 via an online survey. The survey sought to answer questions such as: Which institutions in Texas manage ETDs and which do not How many paper/electronic theses and dissertations are being managed at each institution per academic year Which departments on campus are primarily responsible for ETDs What types of ETD support are provided to students Results: 49 institutions were surveyed and 38 responded. Analysis is currently in progress. Preliminary results indicate the following. 76% of the responding institutions accept ETDs (up from 45% in 2009), 15% plan to accept ETDs in 1-2 years (it was 26% in 2009) Of those who presently accept ETDs, 13% receive and process them via email, ftp, or CD-ROM instead of an online submission system (in 2009 this was 27%) Institutions continue to face challenges in several areas including copyright, embargoes on ETDs, non-traditional formats being submitted, communication between Graduate College and library, and providing ETD-related instruction to students. Institutions are very interested in sharing best practices, policies and procedures Conclusions: After finishing the analysis, the results of the survey will be posted on the TxETDA listserv and blog. The results will help TxETDA identify the challenges of its members, facilitate collaboration to meet those challenges, and increase ETD submission at our institutions.
Who? What? Why? When? A Tale of ETD Metadata
(2015-01-12) Long, Kara; Lyon, Colleen; Park, Kristi; Potvin, Sarah; Rivero, Monica; Thompson, Santi
Early proponents of ETDs argued that moving from print to electronic format would make “these works more readily accessible to other scholars,” raising the specter that “...theses and dissertations lie moldering in library basements, with no efficient way for researchers to locate the information that may be contained in them” [1]. Accessibility and discovery remain integral to continued work that frames the possibilities and promises of the ETD movement. The widening embrace of ETDs by universities has heightened the need for shared standards of description, to help identify and manage a growing number of documents. In recognition of this need, and in an attempt to improve discovery of these materials, members of the Texas Digital Library (TDL) developed and published descriptive metadata standards in 2008. In the intervening years, new use cases around ETDs have arisen, discrepancies in the standard had been identified, and the Vireo ETD Submission Management System has continued to change. To address these issues, TDL formed a metadata working group in 2014. The group is charged with updating standards and communicating the revised guidelines to other members of TDL. In this panel, members of the TDL ETD metadata working group will speak to our efforts to update the standard. We will provide an overview of the “problem areas” in ETD metadata that we’ve encountered and documented, with examples of potential areas of improvement around these use cases. We will report on our progress, initial findings, and next steps in the process. Christian R. Weisser and Janice R. Walker, “Excerpted: Electronic Theses and Dissertations: Digitizing Scholarship for Its Own Sake,” The Journal of Electronic Publishing 3, no. 2 (1997). http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0003.209
Automated Metadata: Transforming ETD Cataloging at Oklahoma State University Library
(2015-01-12) Ahrberg, Janet H.; Mardis, Teresa; Manners, Tabitha
In the realm of cataloging Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) whether traditionally one by one or in batches, the challenge of finding a balance between the quality and the quantity of cataloging is still a universal challenge among academic libraries, regardless of their size. The emphasis on the quality of the cataloging has never been more significant as ETDs, once given minimal level description in library catalog records, now are rich with descriptive metadata as they come to represent an important role of scholarly communication for universities in both their catalogs and institutional repositories. In 2014, the Oklahoma State University Library addressed this challenge with sweeping changes to the cataloging of its ETDs. The transformation began with reducing the amount of time on cataloging the same information for MARC records entering the library’s catalog and for DSpace records of its’ newly launched joint institutional repository, ShareOK. At the core was a batch process to expedite ETD cataloging for both processes while ensuring that the cataloging was meeting national standards. Utilizing Excel to extract data from the ProQuest XML files allowed the use of built-in Excel formulas to transform the data into a standardized form. MARC fields were added and edited to meet RDA guidelines and OCLC record requirements. In addition, Dublin Core elements were standardized in the DSpace records so that both records conformed to national standards for quality and consistency in data. With basic editing and reviewing for quality control, the transformed data is exported as Dublin Core elements for DSpace and also mapped and imported into MarcEdit to create a MARC record. This new process significantly reduces the time spent in creating, editing, and reviewing while improving accuracy.
Vireo 3.0 : A Growing Partnership in the Service of ETDs
(2015-01-12) Larrison, Stephanie; Park, Kristi; Steans, Ryan
Following in the footsteps of the 2013 TxETDA conference presentation, “Vireo 2.0 : An Evolving Partnership in the Service of ETDs” by Laura Hammons, Kristi Park and Scott Phillips, we would like to provide an update on the growth and continued evolution of Vireo and the Vireo Users Group. Vireo is an Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Submission and Management system developed by the Texas Digital Library as an open-source application that is growing in popularity among ETD producing institutions. In this presentation, we will discuss how we formalized the organization of the Vireo Users Group to provide clarity about roles and responsibilities and to encourage contributions and growth outside of Texas; the outcomes of the voting process and feature requests from participation by the Vireo Users Group community; the challenges and benefits of working in an open-source community from the perspective of the Texas Digital Library, developers, and Vireo Users Group Steering Committee Chairs; and the exciting plans for the next version of Vireo. We will also briefly describe the most recent enhancements which make Vireo the most robust ETD submission system available.

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