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This paper aims to describe recent developments in the services provided by Indian electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) repositories. It seeks to explore the prospect of knowledge formation and diffusion in India and to discuss the potential of open access e‐theses repositories for knowledge management.

This study is based on literature review and content analysis of Indian ETD repository websites. Institutional repositories and electronic thesis and dissertation projects in India were identified through a literature survey as well as internet searching and browsing. The study examines the tools, type of contents, coverage and aims of Indian ETD repositories.

The paper acknowledges the need for knowledge management for national development. It highlights the significance of an integrated platform for preserving, searching and retrieving Indian theses. It describes the features and functions of Indian ETD repositories.

The paper provides insights into the characteristics of the national repository of ETDs of India, which encourage and support open access to publicly‐funded research.

Institutional repositories constitute an integral part of present day digital libraries allowing global access to scholarly publications and provides an opportunity for future research enhancement and long term preservation of information. Electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) represent a growing segment of available content in institutional repositories where they contribute to the impact and ranking of their institutions. The present study traces the growth and development of online e-theses repositories in Asia within the broader framework of open access.

The present study tries to discover the composition of ETD repositories in Asia based on the seven key parameters, i.e. country, types, language, disciplines, software, content types and repository policies. To achieve the stated objectives, the ETD repositories developed by Asian countries were identified by selecting the database of OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories) and the retrieved data were thoroughly analyzed for the necessary information.

Theses and dissertations are considered an important part of information resources in any institution. They are often the only source of research work. Unfortunately, access to these valuable unpublished resources is often restricted to parent institution only. The authors found that ETD repositories are addressing this problem by making institutional knowledge available online and thereby not only increasing its visibility and use, but also making them contribute to the impact and ranking of their institutions. Asian countries are beginning to embrace the idea of digitizing, archiving and making their theses and dissertations available online. The study found that more than half of all IRs listed in the directory of OpenDOAR contain ETDs. ETD system is growing fast in some Asian countries. However, the number of universities having e-theses repositories is meager considering the large number of quality academic and research institutions across Asian countries.

The paper argues that ETD repositories not only benefit students and institutions by enhancing education and expanding research, but also by increasing a university’s visibility and use and thereby contributing to the impact and ranking of its parent institutions.

The study hopes to heighten awareness of research being conducted in Asia and its contribution to a global knowledge base. Some of the suggestions to improve the existing conditions and strengthen the growth rate of ETDs in Asia are also presented.

The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the Electronic Theses and Dissertation (ETD) repository creation efforts by various institutions in India and also analyse whether the guidelines issued for depositing ETDs by various government bodies in India are sufficient to implement the ETD submission nationwide.

The paper is the result of the analytical evaluation of the Indian digital repositories especially ETD repositories and the guidelines issued by various government bodies for acceptance of ETDs. To obtain a complete picture of the Indian ETD repositories literature review was conducted, browsed the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) and Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR), since these do not include all the Indian ETD repositories snowball technique was followed. Many of the sites were inaccessible during the study, they are discussed either on the basis of the earlier accessed record or the available literature.

Though in India University Grants Commission (UGC, 2005) and other government bodies have issued guidelines for ETD submission and UGC (in 2009) made it mandatory for all the universities to deposit a copy of the thesis submitted, in the National ETD repository, i.e. Shodhganga, yet the universities do not seem very serious about this issue so far. The study of the ETD repositories of most of the Indian universities and higher level institutions reveals that most of them are busy with the government-funded projects of retro-conversion of the PhD theses piled up in their libraries and have not taken sufficient steps for accepting the current ETD and ETD creating facilities for the researchers.

The Indian universities may expedite the process of accepting the current ETDs and plan training and workshops for the researchers, faculty, theses evaluators and librarians to make them aware about their respective responsibilities.

The Indian researches will be accessible globally resulting in the acceptability and implementation of the research findings for the society and will help in avoiding duplication of research, which means judicial utilization of the public funds, as mostly the research in India is funded by the government.

The literature survey about the ETDs in Indian libraries revealed that almost every article describes the availability of the ETDs and define the ETDs decoratively. All the existing repositories are not exhaustive and contain only retro theses, which neither anybody has tried to evaluate nor stressed on the need of starting accepting the current ETDs. This paper analyses the available collections in ETD repositories and policy provisions for ETD acceptance and also tries to identify the unclear issue before the Indian universities regarding accepting current ETDs.

The purpose of this paper is to report the benefits of scientific communication model of open access (OA) repositories to e-theses. Specifically, the study focusses on the benefits of accessibility, dissemination, visibility and impact of PhD e-theses deposited in repositories.

The study analysed a random sample of 125 PhD e-theses deposited in an OA repository, specifically in the institutional repository (IR) of the University of Salamanca (Gredos). It tracked the sample for analysing on one side the visits and downloads of the e-theses, whose data are obtained from the statistics module of the repository, and on the other side the data citation provided by Google Scholar Citation on these e-theses. To analyse the differences between the indicators (visits, downloads and citations) in different knowledge areas, the Kurskall-Wallis test has been used.

The results indicate that OA IRs become an advantageous channel of scientific communication to grey literature like dissertations and PhD theses, because it increases visibility and use and also produces a significant citation rate.

The paper uses metrics that are used in IR to measure the visibility and impact of a type of grey literature that is very difficult to track because it is unpublished. The dissemination of the grey literature through OA repositories makes it possible. The value of the work lies in the empirical evidence obtained from the analysed PhD e-theses of Gredos repository.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the electronic theses and dissertation (ETD) repository as a subset of local institutional digital repositories. The paper discusses the originating institutions and organizations including Virginia Tech Initiative, the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and the United States Department of Education.

This paper is informational in nature and explores the topic of ETD repositories. It provides information relevant to academic and digital librarians interested in including an ETD repository in their institution's digital library. The paper discusses interoperability among repositories and the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. The paper discusses issues related to ETD repositories including intellectual property rights, publishers' views of ETDs as prior publications, plagiarism issues, development costs, and long‐term preservation issues.

It was found that library administrators who implemented ETD repositories at various universities adapted their models to the needs of their institutions and their graduate students. ETD administrators made decisions about implementation models and software and hardware infrastructure in terms of human and technical resource allocation.

The paper argues that ETD repositories benefit students and universities by enhancing graduate education, expanding graduate research, increasing a university's visibility, and instructing students, faculty, administration, and librarians about digital technology.

The value of this paper for digital and academic librarians concerned with EDT repositories is in providing a historical overview, a discussion of the benefits, and a review of the issues involved with implementing an ETD repository at their institution.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the performance of electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) initiatives in the repositories of federal government-owned universities due to the poor global visibility of ETDs from Nigeria.

An explanatory case study empirical research method was adopted for the study. Using an adapted methodology of Ghosh (2009) and multiple data gathering techniques, data was collected based on the three domains of the network of excellence on digital libraries (DELOS) digital library reference model.

The ETD initiatives in repositories of Nigerian federal universities have not made remarkable progress as digital libraries based on policy, content and system architecture. The specificity of ETDs is not clearly stated in the policies where available. The repositories housing the ETDs are also not compliant with the open archive initiative-protocol for metadata harvesting framework.

The study focussed on ETD initiatives in federal government-owned universities. Although the findings of the study are relevant to other institutions in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa. It cannot be used as a basis for the generalisation based on other performance metrics.

This research study concluded that electronic theses and dissertations in Nigerian institutional repositories are not well managed for effective service delivery and long-term accessibility. The ill-management of the ETD initiatives is the reason for the poor global visibility and accessibility of these research output from this part of Africa.

The study assessed ETD initiatives using constructs from a theoretical framework.

This paper aims to examine the progress and current status of Shodhganga: a reservoir Indian electronic theses. The paper further discusses the need and importance of a centrally maintained repository in the current age and the role and challenges of universities, libraries and researchers in development of institutional repositories at university levels.

Data are collected from Shodhganga server/Web site followed by simple excel analysis which are presented in the paper in the form of tables and graphs.

As on 30 June 2015, a total of 40,175 theses have been deposited in the repository by 217 universities. Jawaharlal Nehru University has submitted highest number of theses (4570, 11.37 per cent) followed by Anna University (2910, 7.24 per cent), Mahatma Gandhi University (2056, 5.12 per cent) and Bundelkhand University (1760, 4.38 per cent). Highest number of theses has been submitted from the state of Tamil Nadu. Numbers of theses and site visitors are gradually increasing (2010-2015).

Shodhganga central repository of Indian electronic theses is an important step of Informational and Library Network Centre and University Grants Commission (UGC) in the Indian subcontinent. The paper recommends that besides UGC-recognised universities, other private/deemed universities, IITs, NITs and IISERs should also be welcomed for voluntarily deposit their theses in the Shodhganga central repository, and one of the fastest way to make progress is to let students upload their works directly.

This paper aims to examine some of the digitization projects at the library of the University of Jordan. As the library acts as the deposit centre for theses from the Arab world universities, an effective management policy for deposit, management and access is required. The paper illustrates some of the existing workflows and considers the challenges and possible improvements.

Interviews (n = 8) with library staff in the Information Division provided details about the methods used for the collection and management of print and electronic theses in the University of Jordan, in addition to some digitization projects. In addition, very recent unpublished brochure was collected from one member of staff in the computer applications and databases section to learn about theses deposit statistics from various countries in the Arab world. A business process modelling technique (Riva) (Ould, 2005) using role activity diagram illustrated some of the existing workflows, the challenges and possible improvements.

Some Arab universities do not send theses on regular basis; some do not collaborate at all. Workflows vary according to the format of the thesis. The number of digitized print theses has reached 77,885 titles, out of total of 84,043, but it is a slow process. All newly submitted theses from Jordanian universities come in print and on a CD, but other external institutions may use different methods (CD only by mail, or direct uploading to the webpage provided by the University of Jordan). The current online system for uploading theses was last updated in 2017. Deposit rates through the system are very low. Access to theses is relatively limited; print theses can be accessed within the library premises. The online theses repository provides full text and all academic staff; students and researchers can access these from any workstation within the university campus. Only registered users may access theses databases (read only) outside the network. Resourcing for digitization is limited, and the digitization itself is currently outsourced although other processes are done in-house.

The paper encourages the use of a practical online theses’ repository to deposit theses from the higher education within the Arab world.

Establishing theses repository and ensuring proper and smooth deposit process by Arab universities libraries, would enhance communication and collaboration amongst them.

The paper supports the theme of the primacy of global access to information for learning and scholarship. The paper adds value in the context of theses access amongst Arab universities. As the library acts as the deposit centre for theses from the Arab world universities, an effective management policy for deposit, management, access and preservation is required. The paper provides a set of recommendations that would contribute to raise the visibility of research produced by Arab higher education, through a single source of access to theses.

The paper aims to describe recent moves to establish a UK electronic thesis service. The existing arrangements for access to UK doctoral theses are not seen as ideal or sustainable. A range of stakeholders have come together in recent years to invest in an alternative. The resulting service model is one that is relevant to higher education across the UK and beyond.

The EThOS service model is a partnership between the British Library as the service provider and UK universities, and includes technical, legal, business and operational aspects. It has been achieved by a series of development projects undertaken since 2002, culminating now in the impending transition from prototype to live service.

The EThOS service model includes a range of partnership options to suit the varied requirements of UK higher education institutions. The main ambition of the model is to make electronic theses available open access via a financially viable and sustainable model. The core of the model is a “central hub”, offering discovery, digitisation and preservation functions, working with institutions, in part via their institutional repositories.

It is hoped that most UK higher education institutions will sign up for EThOS and benefit from this shift to both electronic theses and open access. Many have already indicated that they will do so.

The value of the EThOS service is likely to be considerable. Where theses are available open access, their use escalates. EThOS will enable UK theses to be more widely accessed, read, used and cited worldwide. Authors, institutions and the UK all benefit from this.

The paper aims to describe the characteristics and purposes of Pakistan Research Repository (PRR). A quantitative analysis of this repository is carried out by analyzing the content of the repository. A critical analysis of the entire growth strategy, population and web interface is also included in this paper. This study also proposes certain measures to make it more effective and efficient for archiving the research output of a nation. The study was designed to investigate issues relating to PRR and outline steps to develop a strategy to overcome these challenges.

This article focuses on quantitative aspects and critical analysis of PRR. A multi-tier research design was used to meet the objectives of the study. A web search was conducted, and information was drawn from documents available on the Web site of Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan, PRR and directories of open-access repositories; data were complemented by quantitative and critical analysis of the content of the repository. Information was also gathered by literature-based review of project documents which were created for the implementation of this project.

The paper has highlighted how far this repository has succeeded in bringing the research output from universities across Pakistan to the researcher community by analyzing the available content by institution, type, subject and year. This study has provided a valuable insight about the current status of PRR by identifying gaps in the content of the repository. The quantitative analysis of the repository shows that the creation of this repository was a landmark achievement, as it provided the opportunity to researchers, faculty and students for preserving, disseminating and furthering their existing knowledge at a national-level platform.

This research article is a case study and focuses on PRR only. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to throw light on other repositories in Pakistan and sharing of resources among institutional repositories in Pakistan.

This study will be helpful for the administrative authorities of HEC and university faculty to plan for effective collection of content from the institutions and digitization of this content. The paper includes implications for the development of repositories at an institutional level in Pakistan.

This paper will help in managing PRR, and it will ultimately lead to enhance and better manage research output in Pakistan.

This paper has identified the characteristics and purposes for creating a research repository at the national level and provided a critical view of policies and statistical view of the content of the repository.