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USETDA 2015 Austin: Day 2

01 Oct

The second day of the USETDA conference was just as busy as the first, with many great sessions once again. The morning began with a keynote from Lorraine Haricombe (UT Libraries) titled On Life Support or Leading: Academic libraries in a new paradigm (Abstract, PDF). She spoke about libraries needing to step up as leaders in the changing needs of our users to fill more niche roles that are possible such as being a contributor or partner in faculty and student research and data management throughout their process. She also called for more action for open access initiatives, beyond just ETDs.

Although many presentations looked good, I attended Nick Krabbenhoeft’s (Educopia Institute) about the current ETDplus project, When Students Want to Submit More than a PDF (Abstract, PDF) which focuses on the supplemental files that accompany many ETD submissions. Their expected deliverables include curation software, guidance briefs for different stakeholders (students, staff, etc.), and a training workshop. There will be open review and comment phases next summer/fall so I am looking forward to seeing what ETDplus will offer. This is certainly a topic that needs to be addressed.
Next, Todd Bruns (Eastern Illinois) presented Getting Better All the Time: Using Continuous Improvement to Drive Thesis Enhancements (Abstract, PDF). Once the ETDs were into their IR, they wanted to make the records better and did several projects to do both minor and major improvements. The continuous improvement model ensured that their projects were planned, documented, then reviewed after completion to help manage and assess their efforts overall. The PDF slides have more details about what and how their improved their ETDs and metadata displayed in the IR for anyone who interested in learning more, including representing physical specimens and samples in the IR and ETD records.
The afternoon continued with the excellent poster session, covering topics ranging from embargoes to cataloging to student 3 minute ETD videos:
  • Dealing with the Dynamic – Archiving Dynamic Thesis and Dissertation Documents and Elements in This Era of Great Change by Ginger Dickens and Sunday Phillips (Abstract, PDF)
  • ETDs Embargos: Are There Discipline-Based Differences in Candidates’ Selections? by Midge Coates (Abstract, PDF)
  • Enhancing Access to ETD Catalog Records by Catherine Sassen (Abstract, PDF)
  • To embargo or not to embargo?: The impact of updating embargo options for undergraduate theses submissions by Sarah A. Norris  (Abstract, PDF)
  • The Independent Study Trailer: An Initiative to Promote Undergraduate Theses using Video by Stephen X. Flynn (Abstract, PDF)
  • The Sweet Smell (and Taste) of Success: Incentivizing ORCID ID Sign-Ups Among Faculty and Graduate Students by Billie Peterson-Lugo, Christina Chan-Park  (Abstract, PDF)

To wrap up the day, I attended the Vireo Users Group (Abstract) to learn more about the open source submission system maintained and supported by the Texas Digital Library (TDL). Despite being the last session of the day, it was packed room with mostly current users but also some newcomers hoping to get a sense if Vireo would work well for them. It is clear the user community is close knit and enjoys collaborating together. The developers were in the room and gave an update about version 4 which is in development and the metadata working group gave it’s update about their revised standards and recommendations for software enhancements. While developed in Texas, there are many institutions throughout the US now using Vireo and it continues to grow. The Vireo User Group’s website is: http://vireoetd.org/vireo/

For the evening, conference attendees chose one of several restaurants for the dine-arounds to explore Austin’s great local food scene. I ended up at Bangers Sausage House and had a great time getting to know other attendees and enjoyed an antelope and venison sausage. Then, since it is Austin, my husband Steve and I went to an open mic night, in particular a ukulele open mic and he even got to preform (back row far right). Who knew there was an Austin Ukulele Association? We had an awesome time at the Rattle Inn and everyone was so supportive and heartily cheered on all of the performers. What a fun time!

Austin Ukelele Association group picture

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Posted by on October 1, 2015 in conference

 

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