[Air-L] ADT > Australasian Digital Theses Program

[Jean Burgess]

Just an extra bit of info - as far as I know it is pretty much  
required of all Australian PhD graduates that their theses be  
digitised and deposited both to their own university's library and to  
the ADT repository at the time of completion. The idea being: public  
funding; public knowledge.

Best
Jean

On 23/01/2010, at 11:57, "gerrymck" <gerry.mckiernan at gmail.com> wrote:

> Colleagues/
>
> Open Access To Dissertations / Theses From Oz+
>
> /Gerry
>
> The aim of the [Australasian Digital Theses] ADT program is to  
> establish a
> distributed database of digital versions of theses produced by the
> postgraduate research students at Australian universities. The  
> theses will
> be available worldwide via the web. The ideal behind the program is to
> provide access to, and promote Australian research to the  
> international
> community.
>
> The initial project was funded by an Australian Research Council  
> (ARC) -
> Research Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities (RIEF) Scheme grant
> (1997/1998).
>
> The ADT concept was an initiative of 7 Australian universities (listed
> below) in association with the Council of Australian University  
> Librarians
> (CAUL).
>
> The ADT model was developed by the 7 original project partners during
> 1998-1999. The program was then opened up to all CAUL members (all
> Australian universities) in July 2000. The original 7 partners will  
> continue
> to guide and advise the national group in their role as the ADT  
> Steering
> Committee.
>
> The original ADT membership group:
>
> University of New South Wales (lead institution)
> University of Melbourne
> University of Queensland
> University of Sydney
> Australian National University
> Curtin University of Technology
> Griffith University
>
> ADT Program Overview
>
> The ADT program is designed to improve access to, and enhance  
> transfer of,
> the research information contained in theses by providing a full text
> version available from the desktop via the web. The retrieval is  
> enhanced by
> the inclusion of metadata tags in the documents which are given a  
> higher
> weighting by the more sophisticated search engines.
>
> It is also designed to provide a new model for deposit and archiving  
> of
> theses that takes into account the tools and technologies that  
> students are
> now using to prepare their theses.
>
> The program has two major components, digitisation of theses as part  
> of the
> deposit process and the digitisation of a selected number of  
> frequently
> requested existing theses. As each University is responsible for  
> maintaining
> an archival copy of the theses of their own institution, each  
> participant in
> the program will mount their own theses on a server located in their
> respective institution. The participants will use the same database
> configuration, standards and metadata system to ensure  
> compatibility. The
> document format will be Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF)
> ensuring that the data is independent of the platform on which it is
> created. Adobe PDF ensures that a high quality printed version can be
> provided if needed. Acrobat is relatively easy to use, with a high  
> quality
> free reader readily available. PDF has also become an electronic  
> publishing
> standard.
>
> Access To The Search Page / News & Projects / Archive / Etc.  
> Available At
>
> [ http://tinyurl.com/y8m4lv7 ]
>
> !!! Thanks To / Natalya Godbold / PhD Candidate / Faculty of Arts  
> and Social
> Sciences / University of Technology, Sydney / For The HeadsUp !!!
>
> Enjoy !
>
> /Gerry
>
> Gerry McKiernan
> Associate Professor
> Science and Technology Librarian
> Iowa State University Library
> Ames IA 50011
>
> Follow Me On Twitter > http://twitter.com/GMcKBlogs
>
>>>> "The Future Is Mobile" >>>
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