ETDs and Open Access for Research and Development: Issues and Challenges

Abstract

Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) are the most frequent document type found and consulted for use in the Digital Era. During the last decade, their growth globally has been increased tremendously among universities and other organizations. Moreover, there is an increase in ETDs Initiatives and ETDs Collections. Open access and open source are a natural and forward looking way to develop ETDs and other research material repositories. One of the easiest and most effective ways to promote open access to research and educational content involves support of ETDs. These can play an important role in research by adopting knowledge organization system (KOS) architecture to enhance information retrieval (IR) systems and their performance. The paper will refer to the latest trends in ETDs, which have adopted various technologies, including discovery services, to meet the users’ needs. It will also describe some tendencies concerning ETDs, as observed during explorations of institutional and other repositories along with associated issues and challenges. Global efforts in a broad range of ETDs initiatives will be covered as well within the scope of this paper. Finally, the paper will conclude with some remarkable results, regarding the literature review study and its analysis.