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http://hdl.handle.net/10068/697889
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| Title: | Open access to full text and ETDs in Europe: improving accessibility through the choice of language? |
| Authors: | GL9, Antwerp (Belgium), 2007-12-10 Stock, Christiane (INIST-CNRS) GreyNet, Grey Literature Network Service |
| Keywords: | Open access; ETDs; Open Access Repositories |
| Issue Date: | Dec-2007 |
| Publisher: | Amsterdam : TextRelease, 2008 |
| Citation: | Ninth International Conference on Grey Literature : Grey Foundations in Information Landscape, 10-11 December 2007 (Conference CD-ROM) |
| Series/Report no.: | Conference Program and Abstracts : GL-conference series, ISSN 1385-2308 ; No. 9 |
| Abstract: | Next to journal articles and eprints electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) are the most frequent document type found in open archives, for various reasons: - ETD's are a well defined and well referenced document type. Rules for deposit and citation are generally established on a national level, and international standards exist for specific information and theses metadata, contrary to other grey documents. - ETD's are administrative documents, and students can be “obliged” to deposit their work in an archive or repository for formal reasons. The paper describes some tendancies concerning electronic theses and dissertations in Europe as observed during explorations of institutional and other repositories, with specific regard to the full text. In the first part we examine the changing landscape in repositories where access to the complete full text of a thesis no longer is the unique offer, but where we also find partial access, temporary embargoes and bibliographic citations only. The increase of the number of items seems thus somewhat couterbalanced by a decrease in “quality”. In the second part, we take a closer look at the language issue of ETDs. If the technical open access to the full text of ETDs is increasing, it doesn't necessarily imply an easier access (i.e. readability) for everyone, since the language barrier may still exist. Can the “accessibility” be increased by choosing the right language? Today we observe a growing number of ETDs written in English, the vernacular language for scientific research. But who writes in English? In this paper we explore the phenomenon under different aspects. - Are there differences between disciplines? - Are foreign students more inclined to write in English? - Does the participation in international projects influence the choice of language? - Can legal aspects or national recommendations create obstacles? The growing complexity of the ETD landscape calls for explicit policies to inform the user of a given repository as well as for tools such as directories providing detailed information on a general level. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/10068/697889 |
| Appears in Collections: | GL-9 05 - Humanities, psychology and social sciences |
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