The University of Gloucestershire is updating the dissertation and thesis retention policy and reviewing some related issues. I would be interested in other HEIs retention policies particularly the duration of retention for different categories eg undergraduate, postgraduate taught, postgraduate by research, doctoral.
Our current practice is to receive all dissertations and theses in digital format, there may be a small number of exceptions to this. For doctoral theses we continue to receive hard copy in addition to the digital copy. There are additional restriction on thesis content that affect digital copies, this is the argument for retaining the hard copy though we could do a fine grained selection based on whether the digital copy can be distributed in full. Obtaining a hard copy retrospectively, if not standard practice might not be straightforward.
Dissertations and theses received in hard copy in the past are stored in the library. The University uses Turnitin plagiarism detection software. No doctoral theses have been discarded to-date.
LIS does not have a policy or resource for comprehensive retrospective digitisation. We have some 200 doctoral theses digitised retrospectively on the EThOS database and we are adding our postgraduate theses by research and doctoral theses to our own repository in full text (unless embargoed for FOIA reasons). We will be adding theses from EThOS that were digitised from the hard copy before we had a Research Repository. We may store the hard copy theses not yet digitised and digitise in house on demand (ie someone will manually scan them to a reasonable standard but only if they are requested). EThOS is harvesting all new digital doctoral theses added to the Research Repository.
We have some masters by research and doctoral theses where it has been necessary to make redactions to the digital version - usually for reasons of copyright. Therefore the digital copy is not as complete as the hard copy. There are other theses with embargoes of 2-5 years, digital copies exist and are restricted on our Research Repository ready for release at the appropriate time.
This is the background. My specific questions are:
1. Do you retain all hard copy doctoral theses indefinitely or for a specific number of years whether or not a digital copy is available?
2. Do you retain the hard copy of a doctoral thesis even if the digital copy is unredacted or redacted only for signatures?
3. Does the library receive both hard copy and digital versions of the doctoral theses?
4. If the library stores hard copy doctoral theses how long do you retain them?
5. If the library stores hard copy masters by research and Mphil theses how long do you retain them?
6.If the library stores hard copy taught postgraduate dissertations how long do you retain them?
7.If the library stores hard copy undergraduate dissertations how long do you retain them?
8.Does any HEI hold hard copies of theses and dissertations somewhere other than in the library or library storage?
9.Are there HEIs who no longer require students to submit hard copies of dissertations or theses including doctoral theses?
10. Do you routinely restrict access to hard copy dissertations and theses (ie closed storage, available on request and signed for).
Many thanks for your replies, I will collate and post an anonymised summary. If you prefer to contact me direct my email is [log in to unmask]
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