EThOS [Electronic Theses Online Service] is due to go into Beta testing on Tuesday 9th December [2008]. In order to ensure that the service performs as expected, and to get initial feedback on the web interface, the beta version will initially be released to a small group of testers (from within the project and the wider community). The beta-testers will be able to check and feedback on EThOS, except the ‘order a thesis’ function, which will still only be accessible via the current hybrid service....
Once we are happy that the service is robust it will be made available to the whole community.
The hybrid service will enable the ordering and supply of microfilm copies where the thesis is already held by the British Library. In cases where the required thesis is not held on microfilm by the British Library, the customer’s order will initiate the digitisation of the hardcopy source thesis and delivery as a searchable PDF file on CD-ROM....
More detail from the UoL Library Blog, quoting an offline press release:
EThOS goes into the second phase of beta testing phase this afternoon (20th January 2009). This means that you will now be able to order theses from ethos.bl.uk and, should researchers request theses from your institution, you will be requested to send them to The British Library for digitisation.
Update (1/23/09). Owen Stephens, the Project Director for EThOSNet, wrote to add this clarification (posted with permission):
I thought it might be worth mentioning that the public beta is the step on from the initial beta mentioned in the December EThOSNet Newsletter you quote from, and that now the public beta is available, the ‘hybrid service’ is no longer available. Now we are in public beta http://ethos.bl.uk is the way that all users can get access to PhD theses from the British Library....
...I’m incredibly excited about [the public beta] – of all the projects I’ve been involved in...it has the most potential to have an incredible impact of the availability of research. Until now, if you wanted to read a thesis you either had to request it via ILL, or take a trip to the holding university. Now you will now be able to obtain it online. To give some indication of the difference this can make, the most popular thesis from the British Library over the entire lifetime of the previous ‘Microfilm’ service was requested 58 times. The most popular electronic thesis at West Virginia University (a single US University) in the same period was downloaded over 37,000 times....
One of the biggest issues that has surfaced several times during the course of these projects, is the question of IPR (Intellectual Property Rights). EThOS is taking the bold, and necessary, step of working as an ‘opt-out’ service....In order that authors can opt-out if they do not want their thesis to be made available via EThOS there is a robust take-down policy....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/21/2009 09:53:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
