Even though USETDA is a short conference of only three days, it has been one of these most jam-packed (in a good way) that I have attended. Many of the sessions are practical while even the more theoretical sessions had takeaways that could be put to use right away. It is clear that there are many commonalities in dealing with ETDs even though every institution’s program is at different stage. Concern about supplemental files, creative ETDs that are more than just text, embargoes, preservation, and accessibility are all universal topics.

To finish out the conference today, there were two final all-morning workshops offered. Nick Krabbenhoeft (Educopia Institute) held a workshop on the Lifecycle Management of ETDs (Abstract, PDF). He walked through the Lifecycle document that covers the entire process starting with setting up an ETD program through preservation and assessment, and provided additional insights. We also had several discussions of our different experiences with ETDs locally. The last portion of the workshop covered curation tools and brief demonstrations of a couple of them, including Hiberlink and PREMIS Event Service.

While I couldn’t make it to everything, I kept hearing about great sessions that others attended and thankfully all of the materials are shared on the conference proceedings page, which is where all of the abstract and PDFs links in my USETDA blog posts are from.

I enjoyed my first USETDA conference and look forward to helping host it next year in Columbus, OH. Hope to see you there!