Andy Appleyard, Head – Document Supply and Customer Services

Vicky Roy – Support Services Manager

18th February 2011

Ethos Update

2

The Aims of the EThOS Collaboration

•Offer a UK PhD single point of access produced by UK HE via Open Access.

•To support HE through the transition from print to electronic.

•To expand available content via digitisation.

•To demonstrate UK research on a global scale.

3

Service Delivery – Old v New (Technology)

4

The ordering and delivery workflow

Institutional Repository/HubLibrary

EThOS System

Digitise

Digitise &

Return

Digitise &

Discard

Hard-bound

Loose-leaf

Soft-bound

CD/DVD

Ha

rves

t

Web service

Load

Load

Added Value ServicesDownload (Open Access)

Researcher

Deliver

Institution

e-theses

paper

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The Kirtas APT2400 auto pageturning scanner can produce up to 1200 thesis images per hour.

Equates to 15 theses / shift.

Pages must be uniform withno pull outs.

Zeutchell OS120008 machines originally followedby another 2.

Can digitise 4.5 theses / shift.

Good flexible, reliable machineswith own Omniscan post processing software.

Fujitsu 5750ADF feed for theses that can have cut pages.Advantage being fast & good quality.Unfortunately less quantity of cut bound thesesthan was planned.

BL Digitisation StudioProcess options (designed to suit each individual theses)

6

Usage Statistics

Orders by Country

UK

Australia

I reland

United States

ROW

Interesting facts:-

•113 member institutions

•44,551 theses digitised and available

(14.7 million pages)

•268k downloads to date (88 million pages)

•Average each theses usage x 6 times

compared to 2 from previous microfilm

service.

•Delivered to 185 countries around the

world.

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What do End Users like about EThOS?

Speed of Access

Source – Ethos Impact Survey

Range of Theses available

Intuitive Interface, convenient. Ease

of navigation.

Various delivery options

Ability to search text (OCR)

Electronic / PDF, read anywhere

Open Access

Only 16% of respondents had a negative view

Very easy to use

“I think it’s wonderful – such a fantastic way to share knowledge”

What do supplying HEIs like about EThOS?

Ability to combine back digitisation of print theses with electronic

theses.

“(Model) fairly flexible and

working well for us”

8

Revised EThOS Model – Sept 2011

•New Project Board under the chairmanship of Professor K. Schürer, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise at the University of Leicester.

•Also represented - The British Library, RLUK, Sconul, JISC, JISC Collections, DART-Europe, HE and Cranfield.

•New business model was approved in principle by the Project Board in January 2011

•Following consultation agreed to focus on e-theses only.

• As a separate strand the British Library will continue to offer a digitisation service

•The new Board will oversee the launch of the new service and its future development.

•Plan to meet in May to agree plans and a communications strategy with the goal of launching the new service in September 2011.