Scholarly Communication through ETDs: Perspectives from Developing Countries
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Scholarly Communication through ETDs: Perspectives from Developing Countries
The acceptance of electronic theses and dissertations - working rich digital documents in electronic form, submitting them electronically and 'publishing' them digitally via the library - is growing around the globe as faculty, students, librarians and technologists see the advantage of digital scholarly communication (Lippincott, CNI). Librarians play a significant role in the modern world to spread the light among the users globally. It has become a challenging task to acquire, provide access, maintaining of digital objects in an electronic environment. E-documents as well as p-documents are giving paramount importance to its users in the world of scholarly communication. In this digital era, ETD can be defines as a specialized form of scholarly communication. Through ETD programs individual students can publicize their work through their respective university websites. Future employers of these students can assess their work through the university Websites and students get global impact of their work. ETD programs help employers to recruit innovative people for their organizations. Developing an ETD program is not an easy task. It needs cooperation of many sectors of the university. ETD can be easy to locate, any time, anywhere access and delivered over the Web. Due to the rapid development of networking and digital library technologies ETDs are obtaining progress in the universities globally. Most of the developing countries have realized the importance of establishing an ETD program and some have started local ETD programs. ETD can be printed thesis, which has been scanned and converted into PDF or recently completed work, which made available in word format and converted into PDF. These theses can be defined as born again or born digital theses. Audio and video materials can be included into born digital theses rather than born again one. ETDs enhance the quality, content, form and impact of scholarly communication. It helps for networking, computing multimedia and related technologies on scholarly communication.
2008