Open Access Theses & Dissertations: Launch of a New OA Discovery Tool

"As the body of open access (OA) literature continues to grow, figuring out how to access OA-specific material has remained a challenge for researchers. Various discovery layers have been developed to collect and present openly accessible materials for several subject areas—RePEc (Research Papers in Economics), arXiv.org (physics and computational sciences), and e-LIS (eprints in library and information science) are just a few examples. But up to this point, no discovery tool focused exclusively on openly accessible Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). The Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD.org) project was designed to change that. Led by Thomas Dowling, director of technologies at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University, OATD.org provides a simple way for users to search a global collection of openly accessible ETD literature. The service was launched in early April 2013 and currently includes references to ETDs from more than 600 universities around the world. During a telephone interview, Dowling was asked how the project originated. He explained that the idea was based on a statewide initiative, the OhioLINK ETD Center, which he was instrumental in implementing while working in a previous position. The OhioLINK project is focused on bringing together ETDs from colleges and universities throughout the state of Ohio; OATD.org translates the same concept on a global scale. When asked why he felt it important to develop such a tool specifically for ETDs, Dowling responded, 'I wasn’t terribly satisfied with search options for Open Access theses and dissertations—no single tool does a particularly good job of searching this material.' As far as potential users of the OATD, Dowling explained, 'There are times when students or researchers are researching all of the literature on a particular subject … and thesis/dissertations are usually the hardest part to get hold of. I’m hopeful that this [discovery platform] helps address that issue.' Finding and accessing ETDs can indeed be a challenge. Previously, options would be limited to searching search engines, the NDLTD, or ProQuest’s subscription service. (See the Table for a comparison.) While each of these platforms has its strengths, none had the capabilities Dowling was looking for to facilitate research specifically through ETD literature."