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Letter to Florida International University Students Preparing an ETD |
Dear Student Preparing an ETD,
Your electronic thesis or dissertation (ETD) will contribute to worldwide graduate education as we build a Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) in collaboration with other scholarly institutions. We are writing to address concerns and questions you may have about how this relates to other types of publication. Please read the questions and answers that appear below, and feel free to contact us at etd@fiu.edu if you have further questions.
The Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Initiative at FIU has several goals, including to help you in your career, to help other learners and researchers, and to make available many works that are now "lost" (e.g., theses that led to no other publications and that only are available through inter-library loan).
Most publishers contacted by the ETD Committee support our initiative, realizing that theses and dissertations are very different from previously published or derivative books and articles. We believe that making ETD available will supplement the efforts of publishers so both activities can proceed in harmony. We urge you to prepare your ETD to harmonize with publishing practices, and so that your research becomes as widely disseminated as possible, as soon as possible.
Thank you for your contributions to the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations and the FIU Thesis and Dissertation Initiative.
Sincerely,
Ruben Jaen, Associate Director
(for the FIU ETD Committee)
Note: This letter represents views of the ETD committee, not official University policy, but has been reviewed by a number of campus officials, outside experts on copyright, and publishers.
Questions and Answers
Why should I submit electronically?
By preparing an ETD and submitting it electronically you learn about electronic document preparation and about digital libraries. These skills will help prepare you for your future role in the Information Age, whether you teach, research, or use the research results of others.
Furthermore, you may be able to better convey the message of your thesis or dissertation in an electronic as opposed to a paper document. Thus, you can easily have color diagrams, color images, hypertext links, and even include audio, video, animations, spreadsheets, databases, simulations, virtual reality worlds, etc. in your appendices.
By submitting electronically you also allow your university to fulfill more economically its responsibilities of recording and archiving your thesis or dissertation. This is a key responsibility of the university, that is easier and less costly (in this time of tight budgets) to fulfill when the workflow involves electronic documents.
If I am preparing an ETD, do I need to submit a paper version for the University Library?
The University allows the option of electronic submission. However, until further notice, a student preparing an ETD still need to submit one hard copy of his/her thesis/dissertation for the University Library.
How will people be able to access my ETD?
If you allow your ETD to be freely available worldwide, which we recommend (see below for reasons, and for discussion of other options), we will work to make your ETD as easily available as possible. First, we will allow access over the WWW, so people can link to our collection for browsing, and even link directly to your ETD (with a special type of URL that is not subject to change). Second, in the record for your ETD that will be in the FIU library catalog, we will have link information, so those searching that catalog can link directly to the ETD. Third, we will provide one or more search "engines" so that people can search the FIU ETD collection using "full-text" searching. Fourth, we will have a mechanism so that your ETD can be found by any seeking to search the NDLTD (i.e., the full distributed collection of ETDs made available by institutions that are part of the initiative). Fifth, we will work with 3rd party organizations such as UMI to encourage them to provide access as well as archiving services.
Why should I make my ETD freely available?
The world of scholarship depends on people making their research available to others. When that is done electronically, more people can get access at lower cost, and more knowledge transfer occurs. This can stimulate education and research. It also can ensure that many people give credit to you for your work, and that your research is cited in others' publications, which adds to your prestige and can help your future advancement. We can log all accesses and provide a report to you of the count, to pass on to your supervisors, if you request this.
Before theses and dissertations were available electronically, not many were read. Electronic access multiplies the number of times works are read by a factor of ten or more. Since you spent a great deal of time on your research, it should encourage you to know that others are reading that work. Your literature review may guide others, and your results may save others the time of redoing your study.
With electronic theses and dissertations, students and universities can more easily share knowledge, with much lower costs. We believe that about 200,000 theses or dissertations are completed each year. It would greatly aid graduate education if as many as possible of these were made freely available.
Since we aim to maximize access, which seems especially appropriate for a land grant university, we will not charge and so will not have any royalties to share.
What are the options regarding electronic access?
FIU gives you three options regarding affording electronic access to your ETD. The FIU ETD Submission Approval Form that must be signed by you and your committee when you turn in the final work indicates your choice.
- The first option, which we recommend (see above) is to make it freely available worldwide.
- The second option, which we hope will be needed rarely, is to make the ETD freely available to the University community but at the same time disallow access from others. So that these others will gain access as soon as appropriate, this restriction on access is only for a period of one year. To protect you, the University will allow the period to be extended, a year at a time, as long as necessary, and will not release your work until you and your advisor provide written authorization.
- The third option is to restrict access for a period of a year, even disallowing access by the University community. This option addresses situations such as when a patent application is planned, or when proprietary interests are at stake.
You should consider these options carefully. Feel free to discuss this with your advisor. If you intend to work with a publisher regarding journal or book publications, be sure you understand their policies and any agreements you would sign.
We are happy to explain these options further, beyond what appears below, and are actively working to document publishers' views regarding ETDs. Please note that you can help us prepare guidance for other students by completing the questionnaire we provide about reasons for your option selection, and about student practices and plans regarding publications related to theses or dissertations.
What if I want to write a book related to my thesis or dissertation?
We realize that some students, especially in the humanities, prepare books related to their theses or dissertations. In general it appears to be the case that electronic release of early versions of a book leads to greater sales of such books. Indeed, having an electronic work made available on the Internet, and telling a publisher that there have been a large number of electronic accesses to that work, may help you land a book contract.
Usually, books that relate to theses or dissertations turn out to be significantly changed as part of the editorial process. This makes it likely that those interested in your work will buy your book when it comes out, even if they have reviewed your ETD.
However, since publishers vary widely in their policies, it may be wise to share this letter and other documents about the ETD initiative with publishers to which you are likely to submit your work.
How does the ETD project relate to Bell & Howell (former UMI)?
Bell & Howell (former UMI) is a corporation in Ann Arbor, Michigan that maintains a microform archive of about 1.5 million dissertations, as well as an online service called Dissertation Abstracts. Most dissertations written in the U.S. are submitted to Bell & Howell for archiving on microfilm, from which microform or paper copies can be produced. In fact, all doctoral students at FIU are required to microfilm their dissertation with Bell & Howell. Bell & Howell functions as an on-demand book publisher that eliminates the editorial process. One of the services they offer is to help you regarding copyright and working with publishers.
They accept electronic submissions as well as paper submissions. The latter are scanned in and OCR'ed, but in most cases current technology does not yield as good a result as would come from an electronic submission.
Bell & Howell has a representative on the Steering Committee and on the Technical Advisory Committee for the NDLTD. More information about Bell & Howell can be found at http://www.umi.com.
The NDLTD project focuses on graduate education and raising the level of knowledge transfer. Since students may wish to read a thesis or dissertation that was prepared many years before, it is imperative that the NDLTD arrange for archiving of ETDs, so they can be accessed even when media and technology change. UMI is interested in providing such archival services.
What do I need to know about signing agreements with publishers?
When you have your research published in a conference, book, or journal, you usually sign some type of agreement with the publisher. You should read that agreement carefully before signing, making sure you understand AND AGREE with the terms and conditions. If you don't, you may want to change the agreement in connection with discussion/negotiation with the publisher, and possibly with advice of legal or other counsel. The agreement should be explicit about what future rights of use you retain. If you want to include the materials in a dissertation or to reuse the materials for teaching or a book chapter, say so.
As the author you are entitled to discuss your plans with the publisher. We encourage you to obtain an agreement that allows you to include your research in a freely available electronic thesis or dissertation.
During these negotiations you may want to discuss matters of timing and revision. You have the right to negotiate with a publisher to reduce access to your ETD to your university only for a limited amount of time, if they request this as a condition on publishing your article. However, most publishers consider a thesis or dissertation to be quite different from a journal article. Typically the article is much shorter than the chapter or full work, has been revised as a result of the editorial process and peer review, and sometimes has several authors, resulting in many publishers having no concern regarding fully accessible ETDs.
What if I want to have a journal article as a chapter in my thesis?
If you have published an article or articles before you turn in your thesis or dissertation, and you wish credit for that for your graduate requirements, you have a number of options. These should be discussed with your committee, and possibly with your publisher. First, you can simply cite that publication in your references. Second, if the publisher has the publication online, you can link or point to it (with permission of the publisher, who usually has protection so that paying customers or subscribers are the only ones allowed access). Third, if the publisher gives you a signed release, you can include the publication in your thesis or dissertation as allowed in that release. If the publisher restricts access in that release, say to your university, you may want to have 2 versions of your thesis or dissertation--one with and one without the chapter (e.g., published article) in question.
This matter may be avoided if your thesis or dissertation talks about your research in a very different way from the published article. That often makes sense, since articles are typically short, and your thesis or dissertation may be the only place where all the details, data, tables, and other aspects of your research are made available.
Remember that preparing a thesis or dissertation is part of your graduate experience, one aim of which is to prepare you to be a part of the world of research and publication. While this letter may help make the philosophy of the ETD Initiative clearer, the ultimate success of the initiative depends on you. We hope you will treat this as part of your educational experience, and will take steps when you deal with publishers to help other students gain the widest possible access to your research.
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letterofexplanation.html Revised June 13, 2000