The term electronic thesis designates the publication of a work for the acquisition of the highest academic degree over the medium Internet. Therefore one speaks also of on-line theses.

One finds electronic theses mainly in catalogs of libraries or institutes. They both generally library catalog are mostly as well as in special specified for the administration of electronic theses data bases put on. Such a special data base leads for example the German library (DDB) under the name dissonline.de. Not all electronic theses are callable in the full text. One finds however generally at least a summary of the theses (Abstract) and the reference, where one can access the full text. This is above all the case if the electronic theses are put down in a data base, which is not publicly accessible.

In Germany the German library developed a national data base with the aid other institutions. "„The German library collects 1998 on-line theses since July and - Habilitationen. Zurzeit announced themselves 82 university libraries to further-supply on-line theses appearing with them to the German library "“(Biliotheksdienst, 38. Jg., 2004, S.812.). By such services researching do not only have an approach place, where they can look for literature, it can also immediately thereafter access.

History

The variant of the electronic publication of a thesis originates from the USA. Here one knows this possibility since 1987 (Degenhardt, electronic theses, P. 64). In Germany on-line publication is possible since the year 1996, in Switzerland since 2000. An example of Germany is made possible for the technical University of Chemnitz the university library, since at the beginning of the 1996 "“electronic theses"” (Degenhardt, electronic theses, P. 53).

Advantages

The graduate student does not have to hand its thesis to a publishing house over to the pressure - whereby a pressure share of the cost must be usually carried -, but can be document with the help of a special program, which makes the responsible university library available on their homepage for this purpose, independently into the data base planned for it to enter. By mandatory filling out of a meta data sheet, he takes over also the work of contentwise opening of his publication. Apart from the costs above all the speed of the publication is a large advantage. The delivery of a certain number of printed thesis copies or Mikroform actual depending upon graduation order of the respective university - in some cases nevertheless necessarily.

Technical aspects

One of the most important aspects for smooth using of electronic theses is the file format. At the beginning of electronic publishing Microsoft Word was used. Here however the problem places itself that the documents from different version conditions of the software are not compatible. Therefore above all the pdf format or Postscript is used, which is platform and version independent. In Puncto quality SGML or XML is the preferential formats (S., 21.12.2004 Dissonline).

Legal aspects

A substantial aspect of electronic publishing are copyrights, which can be more easily abused by the form of the publication. The general regulations of copyright, it are however missing explicit definitions apply to electronic publications. This particularly for the reason that their observance is hardly to be controlled. To electronic theses additionally the graduation orders at the respective university apply.

Meaning of the electronic theses

Graduate students and libraries are affected in their activity to most of the innovation electronic theses. But also the society draws advantages from their application.

Graduate student

The effects of electronic theses become apparent in all three phases - selecting the topic, writing the work and following publishing -. In the first phase those give them already publish electronic theses a good overview of the main points of research and the selected topics, which facilitates again the coordination with the assignment of new topics. During writing their thesis the graduate students have the possibility their research results by the integration of multimedia representations such as video sequences to illustrate experiments and graphics. Also advantages result in the case of the footnotes: "„linear footnotes are replaced by constant changeable hypertext on the left of "“(Schmolling, paradigm change, S.1045). In the third and last phase most advantages show up. The condition of a work is made in the last years almost exclusively at the computer. The expenditure is to place the work with the help of the responsible library in Internet small. This step brings three important advantages with itself. To first the graduate student saves for much money. Degenhardt mentions that printing a thesis costs copies and quality between 1.000 and 4.000 DM depending upon number (Degenhardt, electronic theses, S.14).

University library require against it of the graduate students, who want to deliver their thesis in electronic form, only one supply contribution, which adjusts cost-hitting a corner the resulting administrative expenditures. The second advantage exists in the small time delay, which develops between submitting and publishing. This increases the topicality of the documents. The thesis is now world-wide available. So the graduate student can attach for example the URL of its doctor work, by which the personnel chief can access directly her to an application. Beyond that the graduate student proves his authority in the area of electronic publishing, which itself indirectly as 3. Advantage proves.

Libraries

"„The progressive development of electronic publishing affects inevitably the organization of libraries, its tasks, structures and functions back "“(Schmolling, paradigm change, S.1048). Electronic theses as product of electronic publishing lead within the same ranges to changes. So the library must adjust one or more persons for the administration and treatment of the theses in the data base and for the training and support of the graduate students. In response fewer persons for the dispatch and the training of the traditional theses are used. Likewise the library must purchase the necessary hard and software for the administration, if those are not sufficient available hard and software for the new need. The main advantage, which electronic theses bring with itself, concerns the place expenditure. Electronic theses need a physical place, not for the own and also not for other universities. Because thanks of the Internets one can access the theses of other universities via the respective library catalog. Still more simply it, if one provides as in Germany a large, national data base for electronic theses, on which all universities their theses will high-load can (see 6.2 Dissonline). All these factors contribute to the fact that the number remoteborrows will decrease/go back. Thus can be saved temporally, material and personnel expenditure. In addition, certain difficulties adjust themselves. So for example changes at the text of the thesis cannot be opened as "„electronic New edition "“(Schmolling, paradigm change, S.1045) as before as new edition. Also which concerns the archiving of electronic documents generally, the libraries stand still before some difficulties, which it applies to still solve.

Society

Here it concerns particularly interested one in a thesis. Since theses are very specializedspecific, the circle of the interested ones limits itself strongly. There is mainly scientists and researching in this range, in addition, beginning graduate students, who look still for a topic. For all these interested ones electronic theses affect themselves exclusive in their use. By the data bases put on for electronic theses particularly the information about publications improves, since the interested ones know now, where they can look for it. Thus also the knowledge transfer between universities and interested one becomes fast and simpler, because the entrance to the theses is locally not temporal and limited and the interested ones can directly the full text access. Remoteborrow becomes thus redundant. If the interested one called the full text, then further advantages are offered to it. It is to be searched it now possible by different search functions the text to points relevant for it. The research results are presented by the integration of multimedia representations to it more descriptive and more comprehensibly. Generally electronic theses affect particularly the traditional information chain. "„The traditional information chain between author, publishing specialized technical, publishing house, book trade, library and recipient was lastingly changed by the electronic data processing in the science and in the publication nature "“(Schmolling, paradigm change, S.1047). Like that the publishing specialized technical and the book trade, then now also the publishing houses were so far already rarely referred and not to forget the pressure nature from the process of publishing the theses excluded.

Articles in category "Electronic thesis"

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Related Websites

We found here 5 related websites.

• Caltech Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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• OhioLINK - Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center
  The Ohio Library and Information network's center for searching, browsing, and submitting ETDs (electronic theses and dissertations).


• Virginia Tech - Electronic Theses
  Searchable and browsable digital archive of theses and dissertations.