Educational Research Theses : Online Communities and Partnerships

1. Educational Research Theses : Online Communities and Partnerships Sue Clarke Manager, Cunningham Library, ACER ETD2005: Evolution through discovery 28th September 2005

2. Outline • Changes to strategic environment for theses and scholarly research in education • ARIIC, ADT, APSR, ARROW, international open access movement, digital repositories • Australian Education Index, Education Research Theses, Australian Digital Theses • Is there a role for an Education Theses subset? • ERT survey results • Consider new business models • Think beyond academic libraries to include professional and research organisations

3. Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) • Australia’s premier educational research organisation • An independent, not for profit organisation since 1930 • Creates and disseminates knowledge and tools to improve learning in the context of lifelong learning • International orientation to work with offices in India, Dubai and Cambridge, UK

4. ACER Research Programs • Assessment and reporting • Early Childhood Education • Learning Processes and Contexts • National & International Surveys • Systems and School Testing • Teaching & Learning • Transitions & Economics of Education

5. Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)

6. Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) – Cunningham Library • Build and maintain an information resource which supports policy development, research, practice and debate in the field of education • Provide information access to the education community on research and practice in the field of Australian education • Compile and maintain the Australian Education Index and other knowledge based products such as the Australian Education Directory, the Australian Thesaurus of Educational Descriptors

7. Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) – Cunningham Library • Who was Cunningham? • Dr Kenneth Stewart Cunningham was the founding director of ACER, a position he held for 25 years from 1930 - 1954

8. Kenneth Stewart Cunningham

9. The Atrium

10. Cunningham Library

11. Cunningham Library

12. Education Research Theses (ERT) • Aim : the only comprehensive source of unique research found in doctoral and masters research theses accepted by Australian universities in the field of education • Includes bibliographic citations and abstracts from 1919 to the present, updated monthly • More than 12,000 entries • Data contributed to Aust Education Index since 1978 • Subject headings are assigned from ATED, the Australian Thesaurus of Educational Descriptors • Core grant to produce ERT was phased out in 2002 at which point it became available by subscription

13. Education Research Theses (ERT) • ERT has a small number of subscribers (20) • ADT is trawled to identify further theses for inclusion in ERT with monthly updates • Libraries are now providing this information as it is received rather than waiting to be asked • 1,900 database searches per month

14. Education Research Theses (ERT)

15. Australian Education Index (AEI) • Comprehensive database containing over 133,000 entries and abstracts from 1978 to the present • Subject area includes educational research, policy and practice • Australia’s largest source of education information – updated monthly • Full text to over 16,000 entries are available via AEI and a further 9,000 in A+Education

18. Australian Digital Theses (ADT) • Aim is to create a national collaborative distributed database of theses in digital format providing access PhD and Masters by coursework • Provision of a central metadata repository • 150,000 records, Kinetica records have been added to the metadata repository with quarterly future updates, daily updates from the ADT • Links to 4,500 full text theses • New redeveloped metadata repository with enhanced functionality • Latest communication protocols for sharing data

19. Australian Digital Theses (ADT)

20. Education Research Theses (ERT) Survey • A survey of existing customers of the ERT has been undertaken in August 2005 • Investigate the proposition that a subset of the education theses be generated from the AEI or ADT if there is a demand for it • Survey sent to 20 university subscribers • Responses received 14

24. Survey Results Question 2 - Satisfaction • Search functionality could be better x 4 • Expensive when it duplicates data accessible elsewhere • It isn’t as necessary any more because of institutional repositories and ADT • No longer subscribe as AEI covers the material

25. Survey ResultsQuestion 3 – Other Products • Later theses on AEI • Libraries Australia seems to contain all except a very few theses (but no abstracts) • UMI Digital Dissertations • Australian Digital Theses (ADT) • Free OAI theses databases • Networked Digital Library of Theses

26. Survey ResultsQuestion 4 - Future Role for Education Research Theses (ERT) • Do you see a role and future for the ERT database • Yes x 7, No x 3 • Comments: • Yes, but not unless it can offer something that is not offered elsewhere • It is confusing to ask researchers to look in different places • ADT is taking over this role, roll into ADT • There is a move for free access to theses • While I think it is an important resource, I think it is impracticable

27. Survey ResultsQuestion 6 – Value of Education Research Theses (ERT) • I know there are a few academics who refer to ERT, but generally we access theses through AEI • We have a large Education school with many postgraduate research students. This is an important resource • It is recommended to and used by all our Higher Degree students and research staff. It is valuable both to students and staff • Limited as some information is found elsewhere

28. Survey ResultsQuestion 7 – Future Options • Add to AEI (9 responses) • Continue new business model (2 responses) • Other suggestions : continue the database as a freely accessible Open Archive Initiative compliant database • I would be loath to add to AEI because of problems limiting the search to research theses only

29. New Business Models • Add value to the AEI by adding in 900 pre-1978 theses that are currently not in AEI with improved record quality and coverage • Provide unique content which is not in ADT or Kinetica to the Australian Digital Theses, abstracts, ATED descriptors (metadata) • Develop linkages between ACER and ADT for linking AEI and ADT • Ask Deans of Education for funding to make the ERT database free and available on the web

30. Challenges / Benefits for ACER • Value add the AEI • Improve resource discovery search and retrieval functions by moving the theses to new software • Remove double handling – reduce costs • Find new business model • Loss of revenue stream

31. Challenges / Benefits for ADT & Research Community • Professional and research organisations have a range of services available to their members and stakeholders • Develop linkages between ADT and ACER to explore how ACER fits into the national information infrastructure • Researchers want less places to look when finding theses information.

32. Conclusion • ACER is strategically placed to work with the educational research community and collaborative partners to explore new business models, develop metadata and document repositories to avoid duplication of effort and fragmented collections of resources

33. Contact • Sue Clarke • clarke@acer.edu.au • www.acer.edu.au • I would love to hear from people at the conference who are interested in this topic