Business Case

Academic institutions internationally are creating institutional repositories in order to make their research output more visible.

Many Universities have opted to input e-prints and ETDs as the content initially. When writing a Business Case for the creation of an ETD repository, it is important to consider the associated needs of other content that may form part of the wider collection.

It is hoped that institutions will take advantage of opportunities that will become available in future to deposit ETDs in a national digital repository. Smaller institutions may wish to deposit their ETDs only in a national collection if the cost of creating an institutional repository is prohibitive. In such cases the reasons why it is unrealistic to setup the infrastructure for an institutional repository, and the benefits of still being able to publicise PhD research output, need to be demonstrated.

The Key issues to address in an ETD Business Case are as follows:

Why?

• Why ETDs are important and why ETDs need to be made available in a digital repository?

• Why an institutional repository should be developed?

• Why the content should be provided to a national hub.

What?

• What the institutional repository will contain?

• Will a collection of ETDs be established separately from, or alongside, e-prints etc..?

How?

• How will the repository be created? (The JISC funded 'FAIR' projects favoured 'DSpace' and 'E-Prints' as software which would suit ETD collections well.)

• Reference can be made to the existence of the metadata core-set for ETDs

• Information about various relevant technical and legal issues can be obtained from the RGU 'Electronic Theses' web pages, the University of Glasgow 'Daedalus' web pages and the University of Edinburgh 'Theses Alive!' web pages.

Where?

• Consideration needs to be given to where the content of the ETD repository will be stored - where an in-house server will be located or whether the content will be stored only in a national collection.

Who?

• Responsibility for the creation and maintenance of the ETD collection has to be decided. Who will train students and staff to create ETDs in an appropriate form? Who will convert theses from Word documents into pdf (students or library staff)? How much staff time will be needed to support the ETD process?

Costs

• Capital costs may include the purchase of a dedicated server and related equipment.

• DSpace and E-Prints software are open source and therefore do not incur purchase costs. However, staff time will be required to install the software and to update it periodically.

• The major ongoing cost will be for staff time. Staff will be involved in advocacy work (initially to promote the concept of ETDs and later, if electronic submission is not mandatory, to encourage students to provide the content for the repository). Staff will also be required to provide training for students and staff on an ongoing basis, to assign metadata to theses, and to upload the content into the ETD repository.