E-Dissertations: Access and Restrictions (EDAR)
Survey 2014 Report

Joachim Schöpfel, Hélène Prost, Marjorie Piotrowski, Eberhard Hilf, Thomas

Severiens, Paul Grabbe

► To cite this version:

Joachim Schöpfel, Hélène Prost, Marjorie Piotrowski, Eberhard Hilf, Thomas Severiens, et al. E-Dissertations: Access and Restrictions (EDAR) Survey 2014 Report. Université de Lille; European Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities. 2014, pp.1-27. sic_01045115

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E-Dissertations: Access and Restrictions (EDAR)
Survey 2014

Report

Joachim Schöpfel, Helene Prost, Marjorie Piotrowski
*GERiiCO Laboratory at the University of Lille 3, France*

Eberhard R. Hilf, Thomas Severiens, Paul Grabbe
Institute for Scientific Networking at the University of Oldenburg, Germany

This report has been prepared with funding support by the European Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities (MESHS-USR 3185), Lille, France.

Lille, Oldenburg, May 2014
# Content

<table><tr><td>French Executive Summary</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Abstract</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>1. Objectives</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td>2. Methodology</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>3. Results</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>3.1. Response Rate</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>3.2. Policies</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td>3.3. Results and tendencies</td><td>12</td></tr><tr><td>3.4. Access Restrictions</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td>3.5. Synthesis</td><td>18</td></tr><tr><td>3.6. Education and Assistance</td><td>18</td></tr><tr><td>4. Discussion</td><td>18</td></tr><tr><td>4.1. Methodology</td><td>18</td></tr><tr><td>4.2. Comparison with former studies</td><td>19</td></tr><tr><td>4.3. Libraries and graduation committees: the German situation</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>4.4. Bottlenecks</td><td>21</td></tr><tr><td>5. Future Progress</td><td>21</td></tr><tr><td>6. Bibliography</td><td>23</td></tr><tr><td>7. Appendices</td><td>24</td></tr><tr><td>Appendix 1 Survey Academic Libraries French</td><td>24</td></tr><tr><td>Appendix 2 Survey Academic Libraries German</td><td>24</td></tr><tr><td>Appendix 3 Survey Graduate Schools French</td><td>25</td></tr><tr><td>Appendix 4 Survey Graduate Schools German</td><td>26</td></tr></table>
Tables and Figures

<table><tbody><tr><td>Table 1: Number of responding entities (absolute figures, total sample=60)</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td>Table 2: Stating some kind of Open Access policy (absolute figures)</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td>Table 3: Number of PhD theses (all types, 2009-2012)</td><td>12</td></tr><tr><td>Table 4: Number of digital PhD theses (only ETD, 2009-2012)</td><td>13</td></tr><tr><td>Table 5: Number of digital PhD theses in Open Access (ETD in OA, 2009-2012)</td><td>14</td></tr><tr><td>Table 6: Number of digital PhD theses with restricted or no access (ETD not OA, 2009-2012)</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td>Table 7: Offered embargo periods reported by the libraries</td><td>16</td></tr><tr><td>Table 8: Number of digital PhD theses with restricted or no access, per type of restriction (ETD not OA, 2009-2012)</td><td>16</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 2: Openness and accessibility of ETD (both countries, 2009-2012)</td><td>17</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 3: Openness and accessibility of ETD (only France, 2009-2012)</td><td>17</td></tr><tr><td>Table 11: Training and education on ETD (absolute figures)</td><td>18</td></tr><tr><td>Table 12: Review of former studies and selected repositories (from Schöpfel & Prost 2013b)</td><td>19</td></tr></tbody></table>
# French Executive Summary

## Thèses électroniques : accès et restrictions

### Objectifs

Malgré une politique en faveur du libre accès, un nombre significatif de thèses et mémoires électroniques (ETD) ne circule pas librement. Même s'ils ne sont pas confidentielles, leur accès est limité au campus, ou bien, ils sont sous embargo pendant plusieurs mois ou années. Différentes raisons expliquent ce phénomène : le choix individuel de l'auteur, des projets de publication, les aspects juridiques ou autre.

Composée de membres du laboratoire GERiico de l'Université de Lille 3 et de L'Institut for Scientific Networking d'Oldenbourg, l'équipe de recherche franco-allemande EDAR, prépare un projet de recherche international, qui, s'il est financé dans le cadre du programme Horizon H2020, fournira un livre blanc et un guide de bonnes pratiques ; il contribuera également au développement d'une infrastructure européenne pour le libre accès aux thèses électroniques.

Afin de préparer la proposition de ce projet l'équipe d'EDAR a mené une enquête auprès d'un petit échantillon de bibliothèques universitaires et d'écoles doctorales, conjointement en France et en Allemagne, afin d'obtenir des données de base pour la période 2009-2012, sur l'archivage et l'accès aux thèses électroniques. Cette enquête sera menée à plus grande échelle dans le cadre du projet H2020, mais elle permet déjà de sensibiliser l'ensemble des acteurs concernés en France et en Allemagne.

### Méthodologie

Deux questionnaires distincts ont été adressés à 15 bibliothèques universitaires et 15 écoles doctorales, conjointement en France et en Allemagne.

### Résultats

L'enquête a recueilli un taux global de participation de 52%, avec un taux de réponse de 77% pour les bibliothèques universitaires, de 27% pour les écoles doctorales.

Toutes les bibliothèques universitaires gèrent les thèses sous leur version électronique parallèlement au format papier ; en France, la version électronique est enregistrée dans l'interface STAR, en Allemagne, elle est intégrée dans l'archive institutionnelle puis dans le système d'archivage à long terme de la bibliothèque Nationale Allemande (DNB).

Seulement un tiers des répondants - des bibliothèques universitaires exclusivement - déclarent une politique clairement définie à l'égard du libre accès menée par leur institution. En Allemagne, le doctorant est l'unique responsable de la publication de sa thèse, qu'il peut choisir de déposer dans l'archive institutionnelle ou ailleurs, la restriction d'accès à sa thèse dépend de sa seule initiative.

Quatre bibliothèques françaises et sept bibliothèques allemandes ont fourni le nombre total de thèses soutenues sur les quatre années de la période, s'élevant à 6 961 pour la France, à 9 847 pour l'Allemagne, parmi lesquelles 31% et 43% sont enregistrées sous format électronique, respectivement en France et en Allemagne.
En France, la proportion des thèses en libre accès concerne 12% des thèses soutenues en 2009, puis 24% en 2012. La part des thèses confidentielles représente 2% puis 3% des thèses électroniques respectivement en 2009 et 2012. Aucune thèse électronique n'est enregistrée sous embargo en 2009, tandis que 7% d'entre elles le sont en 2012. La part des thèses électroniques disponible uniquement sur le campus passe de 5% à 28% entre 2009 et 2012.

En Allemagne, la part des thèses en libre accès représente 41% puis 47% des thèses soutenues en 2009 et 2012. Les restrictions d'accès ne sont pas encouragées par les institutions, mais comme elles sont seulement demandées par une minorité d'étudiants, elles concernent 1% des thèses électroniques.

Près de la moitié des bibliothèques universitaires, mais aucune école doctorale dispensent des modules de formation aux aspects techniques liés au dépôt de la thèse électronique, au cours desquels les aspects légaux et les restrictions d'accès sont abordés.

## Discussion

Vu l'absence de données exploitables de la part des écoles doctorales et la sous-estimation des thèses disponibles en libre accès en Allemagne, les résultats de l'enquête présentent un certain biais, mais ils complètent les informations de notre étude précédente menée auprès d'institutions françaises et belges et basée également sur la littérature : cette étude démontre les disparités d'accès entre les institutions et le manque d'information relative aux restrictions ; elle révèle aussi qu'en France et en Allemagne, la transition entre support papier et électronique est toujours en cours.

Les commentaires laissés par les participants à l'enquête EDAR sont en contradiction entre la motivation déclarée pour le libre accès et le manque d'informations sur la réalité de la disponibilité des thèses électroniques.

L'enquête démontre aussi le manque de communication entre les différents acteurs intervenant dans la gestion des thèses électroniques :

En Allemagne, ce manque de contact est renforcé par le fait que seul le doctorant est responsable de la publication de sa thèse. Comme l'implication de l'école doctorale est limitée, le personnel n'a pas une vue d'ensemble des différents aspects de la gestion des thèses électroniques, comme le droit de copie, les restrictions d'accès, le libre accès ou les aspects techniques.

En France, la gestion des thèses est encore en transition, entre les versions imprimée et électronique, ce qui peut expliquer le faible retour de données statistiques. La loi sur la propriété intellectuelle impose l'autorisation formelle de l'auteur pour la diffusion numérique ; cette disposition entraîne un taux souvent élevé de restriction d'accès ou une disponibilité limitée au campus. D'autre part, la gestion des thèses électroniques ne fait pas l'objet d'une action coordonnée entre la bibliothèque universitaire et l'école doctorale : cela est d'autant moins facile du fait que la bibliothèque dépend d'une université, alors que l'école doctorale peut être implantée sur différents campus universitaires.

## Perspectives

Les résultats du projet seront présentés lors de la 17e conférence internationale sur les thèses et mémoires électroniques (ETD 2014) à Leicester en juillet 2014.
Suite au projet EDAR, l'équipe prépare une proposition pour le programme-cadre Horizon européen 2020.

Ce projet "Electronic Theses and Dissertations for Open Access" (ETD4OA) renforcera la coordination des infrastructures européennes et des politiques en faveur du libre accès aux thèses et mémoires électroniques. Il abordera les problèmes relatifs aux restrictions d'accès, il élaborera des conseils et recommandations afin de promouvoir et développer le dépôt, la diffusion et l'impact des thèses dans les portails et archives institutionnelles. Les objectifs du projet ETD4OA sont les suivants :

1. Produire et diffuser des données empiriques fiables et cohérentes sur le traitement des thèses et mémoires électroniques dans un large éventail de pays européens, avec leurs différentes infrastructures et environnement juridique, puis aborder plus particulièrement les problèmes des différentes restrictions d'accès.

2. Contribuer à la coordination des politiques de libre accès concernant les thèses électroniques dans l'espace de la recherche européenne et construire une communauté européenne durable en faveur de l'accès libre aux thèses.

3. Contribuer à la compréhension et le développement de l'usage des infrastructures du libre accès aux thèses électroniques, au sein des différentes communautés scientifiques.

4. Elaborer des recommandations et guides de bonnes pratiques, visant à sensibiliser les sociétés et à soutenir la coopération avec les pays en voie de développement, afin d'augmenter la part des thèses électroniques diffusées dans les archives institutionnelles sans restriction d'accès.

Une telle infrastructure européenne existe déjà, via le portail DART-Europe où sont consultables plusieurs centaines de dépôts institutionnels et archives ouvertes. Le projet ETD4OA n'a pas l'ambition de développer une nouvelle infrastructure ou un autre prototype. Aujourd'hui, le problème du libre accès aux thèses se trouve en amont sur le plan des politiques locales qui facilitent les décisions en faveur des embargos ou des restrictions d'accès.

Le dépôt dans une archive institutionnelle varie selon le pays, le domaine de recherche ou l'université. Augmenter le pourcentage de libre accès pose un problème qui se situe à plusieurs niveaux, tant technique (gestion des flux), juridique et administratif (réglementation) que sur le plan des pratiques et de l'éthique. La réponse proposée par le projet est non seulement la sensibilisation, le lobbying au plan national et vis-à-vis de la politique européenne, mais aussi un réseau de communication, à destination des doctorants et du personnel local responsable, ainsi que la production de matériels de formation appropriée.

ETD4OA vise à accroître l'utilisation des réalisations nationales, à savoir les dépôts institutionnels et des infrastructures du libre accès, en les intégrant dans un réseau émergent des personnes, responsables et engagées pour la visibilité des thèses de recherche européennes. Ses objectifs sont d'exploiter les synergies entre les initiatives nationales et de l'Union, par la mise en place de partenariats entre les décideurs politiques pertinents et les organismes de financement ou des groupes consultatifs, afin de faciliter le développement des infrastructures de recherche mondiale et la coopération des infrastructures européennes avec leurs homologues non européens (États-Unis et Russie notamment), en assurant leur interoperabilité et leur accès.
Le projet posera entre autres les questions suivantes : Quelle est la part des restrictions d'accès choisies par les doctorants par crainte de violation du droit d'auteur ? Existe-t-il une pression croissante des éditeurs commerciaux de ne pas autoriser la diffusion en libre accès si la publication d'un livre est planifiée ? Y a-t-il plus récemment, d'autres façons de diffuser une thèse en libre accès qui ne soient pas décomptées parmi les dépôts institutionnels, comme par exemple, d'autres serveurs institutionnels, les sites personnels, ou la publication dans une revue en libre accès ?

ETD4OA sera soumis dans le cadre de l'appel à projet H2020 intitulé H2020-INFRASUPP-2014-2, "Soutien à l'innovation, ressources humaines, politique et la coopération internationale", un appel intégré dans le programme H2020-INFRASUPP-2014-2015. La date limite de cet appel est le 2 septembre 2014.
Abstract

European and American studies on electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) reveal that one part of digital PhD theses, even if not confidential, is limited to on-campus access and/or under embargo. A French-German research team conducted a survey with a small sample of academic libraries and graduate schools in France and Germany (16,508 theses) on the situation and tendencies from 2009 to 2012.

Digital theses represent 38% of the whole sample. 84% digital theses are Open Access while 5% are limited to on-campus access, 2% are under embargo and 1% are confidential. For 9%, data on accessibility are missing. The 84% OA digital theses represent 32% of all theses (print and digital). The survey reveals also differences between France and Germany, especially:

France: The part of OA theses compared to all theses increased from 12% of the PhD theses in 2009 to 24% of the PhD theses in 2012. There is an increase of embargoed PhD theses as enforced by the libraries, from 1% of the ETD in 2009 to 7% in 2012. On-campus access restrictions of ETD increased from 5% in 2009 to 28% in 2012.

Germany: The number of OA theses increased from 41% of all theses in 2009 to 47% in 2012. Furthermore, very few libraries reported access restrictions. There are however some individual cases – less than 1% – where the author asked for restrictions because of confidential material etc.

Following the EDAR project, the project team prepares a proposal for the European Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. The project "Electronic Theses and Dissertations for Open Access" (ETD4OA) will support the coordination of European infrastructures and open access (OA) policies in the field of electronic theses and dissertations. Together with stakeholders and OA initiatives, it will address barriers and access restrictions, and it will take actions (active communication, recommendations, advice) to promote and develop input, openness and impact of ETD in existing open repositories and portals.
# 1. Objectives

A small but growing number of European and American empirical studies on electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) reveal figures on access and restriction (see an overview by Schöpfel & Prost 2013a). Even if not confidential, some of the ETD are limited to on-campus access and/or are under embargo for several months or even years. There are different factors and reasons for this situation, such as individual choice by the author, publishing projects, or legal aspects, as seen by the library (see conceptual framework by Schöpfel & Prost 2013b).

Together with European institutions, networks and infrastructure projects, the French-German research team EDAR prepares an international research project proposed to be funded by the European Union Horizon2020 programme, to provide a white paper and guidelines for good practice by the planned Europe-wide and accepted active communication infrastructure for Open Access to ETD.

In preparation for this H2020 proposal named ETD4OA (*Electronic Theses and Dissertations for Open Access*) the EDAR team conducted a survey with a small sample of academic libraries and graduate schools<fnref n="1" /> in France and Germany, in order to get some basic data on the situation.

The project partners of EDAR are the [Institute for Scientific Networking](https://www.institut-forschungsnetzwerks.de/) at the University of Oldenburg, Germany and the [GERiiCO Laboratory](http://www.gerii.co/) at the University of Lille 3, France, with funding and technical support from the *European Social Sciences and Humanities Research Institute* at Lille (MESHS).

Gathering empirical data on Open Access and restrictions to ETD is the first objective of the survey. Here, the EDAR project builds on former studies conducted in 2012 and 2013 (see references above).

The aims are:

1. to collect and analyze basic information on the present status of the workflow.

2. to collect and analyze basic information with regard to acceptance, access, and local communication of the Open Access posting and archiving of PhD theses and dissertations.

3. to collect and analyze information on the local habits and rules for handling restricted access to theses, such as embargo or on-campus-only access.

The second objective is to contribute to the preparation of the H2020 project proposal mentioned above, in two different ways: by collecting new empirical data for ETD dissemination, and by testing a sampling and survey approach to be adapted to the greater scale of the planned H2020 project.

<footnote n="1">¹ In France, graduate schools are called “Ecoles Doctorales”. In Germany, instead of graduate schools stricto senso the universities have a special so-called Promotions-Prüfungsausschuss per Faculty, a disciplinary graduation committee for processing the academic examination of Promotion, the equivalence of a PhD in the Anglo-Saxon sphere. The elected head of the committee we name graduation committee chairman here. The written part of the Promotion is a thesis, called a dissertation. These equivalent structures in the two countries we will subsum in this report as “graduate schools”, and the committee heads as graduation committee chairmen, if not mentioned otherwise, and will call the dissertations also just PhD theses.</footnote>
The last objective of this survey is awareness raising – awareness on access and restrictions of dissertations in an open environment among the community of academic libraries and graduate schools in France and Germany. This is extended also to stakeholders, staff, policy makers and PhD students, through communication via social networks, web sites and publications.

## 2. Methodology

A small but representative sample of academic libraries and graduate schools were selected from both countries (N=60). The criteria of the sampling were:

**Academic libraries:**

* Selection of 15 French academic libraries, based on the representative sample from another research study on usage and scientific production 2013 (ELICO Lyon and GERiiCO Lille).

* The 15 German university Libraries were chosen at random.

**Graduate Schools:**

* Random sampling of 15 French graduate schools ("Ecoles doctorales") by region and scientific domain.

* The German sample of 15 graduation committee chairmen ("Prüfungsausschussvorsitzende", PAV) were selected from the 15 universities included in the library survey. Care was taken, that the 15 faculties (one from each University) were from different research fields. Thus the sample covered faculties in the fields of architecture, law, economy (2), mathematics and exact sciences (3), human science, culture, linguistics, medicine (2), engineering and social science.

The two questionnaires, one for libraries and one for the graduate schools were prepared in English and then translated into French and German, with slight adjustments to be compliant with the local context. All variants are available on the EDAR project website<fnref n="2" />. They are also attached to this report (see appendices).

The sample institutions were contacted by email, with some basic information about the project and a link to the EDAR project website. Moreover the email contained a link to the questionnaire on the survey platform (direct access). The survey answers were registered anonymous.

The survey took place between 16 January and 19 February, 2014.

## 3. Results

### 3.1. Response Rate

Summed up over both countries, 77% of the selected academic libraries answered the survey, while only 27% of the Graduate Schools did so.

<footnote n="2">² http://edar[meshs.eu](http://edar[meshs.eu](https://))</footnote>
<table><caption>Table 1: Number of responding entities (absolute figures, total sample=60)</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>France</th><th>Germany</th><th>Total</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Academic Libraries</th><td>12</td><td>11</td><td>21</td></tr><tr><th>Graduate Schools</th><td>6</td><td>2</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><th>Total</th><td>18</td><td>13</td><td>31</td></tr></tbody></table>

For both countries together the response rate is 52%. In addition, we got a number of calls and oral responses from addressees that they would still be 'working on the answers'.

For the French sample, all available statistics of the sample were exploited. For the German sample, only those with complete answers were analyzed.

## 3.2. Policies

### Transition from print to electronic theses

All academic libraries are handling electronic theses and printed dissertations in parallel.

In France, most of the academic libraries (9) reported that they use the French national archiving system STAR for their ETD. Three say they are on the way to handle ETD and to partially using STAR.

In Germany, all responding academic Libraries (11) reported that they use the nationwide established framework for their ETD. The respondents all accept ETD, if they are handed in. They publish them in their Institutional Repositories, and use the long-term archiving service offered by the German National Library (DNB). Data are transferred into the archive making use of the defined and agreed metadata set 'XmetaDissPlus'.

None of the respondents in both countries stated a policy 'ETD only', i.e. a mandatory policy, which would mean that the student *must* hand in his/her PhD thesis as an ETD. Such an ETD mandate has been installed and enforced already at some US-Universities.

### Open Access and Restrictions

Summed up over the respondents from both countries, only one third, exclusively academic libraries, stated that their institution has an explicit policy with regard to Open Access.

<table><caption>Table 2: Stating some kind of Open Access policy (absolute figures)</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>France</th><th>Germany</th><th>Total</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Academic Libraries</th><td>6</td><td>4</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><th>Graduate Schools</th><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><th>Total</th><td>6</td><td>4</td><td>10</td></tr></tbody></table>
In France, six academic libraries report some kind of policy in favour of Open Access. Only three universities have decided a mandatory policy which means that PhD students must deposit their thesis as ETD on the institutional repository. The other universities recommend or are in favour of open access dissemination but do not require the deposit.

In Germany, more than half (64%) of the respondents say they do not have an explicit Open Access Policy for their university. Only 36% claimed that such a policy is implemented, meaning that they decided to increase actively the Open Access ratio of PhD theses.

With regard to Open Access Policies in Germany, all libraries reported that they follow the nation-wide installed workflow scheme. This in nation-wide consent and cooperation established framework was defined and established since 1995 by the German Science Foundation funded project DISSONLINE: Each university accepts electronic dissertations if they are handed in, publishes them in their Open Access Institutional Repository (OA-IR), and in addition sends a digital copy for long term archiving to the German National Library DNB. The metadata of all dissertations are preserved in the academic library catalogue.

The Open Access Institutional Repositories (OA-IR) of all Universities are registered by the DINI (German Initiative for NetworkInformation e.V.). The DINI workgroup e-publications serves the libraries in addition a rich spectrum of services and give advice for professionalizing their OA-IR. The policy of DINI is to promote and propel policies for ETD to be Open Access. In addition DINI is handing out a Certificate, if an Open Access Institutional Repository is compliant with a minimum set of requirements set by DINI seen necessary to be a professional service<fnref n="3" />.

In our survey here, since the answers were anonymous, we do not know which of the university library answers came from a certified OA-IR.

### 3.3. Results and tendencies

#### Total number of PhD theses in the sample

With regard to the development of the **reported total number of dissertations** over the years 2009-2012, the French and German libraries provided numbers for all years. They reported 6,961 (French), 9,547 (German), and in total 16,508 dissertations. The data of these libraries show the following development:

<table><caption>Table 3: Number of PhD theses (all types, 2009-2012)</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>France</th><th>Germany</th><th>total</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>2009</th><td>1726</td><td>2425</td><td>4151</td></tr><tr><th>2010</th><td>1661</td><td>2367</td><td>4028</td></tr><tr><th>2011</th><td>1683</td><td>2369</td><td>4052</td></tr><tr><th>2012</th><td>1891</td><td>2386</td><td>4277</td></tr><tr><th>total</th><td>6961</td><td>9547</td><td>16508</td></tr></tbody></table>

In both countries the total number of PhD theses per year did not change significantly

<footnote n="3">³ For French readers, see Schöpfel & Müller (2013)</footnote>
over the years 2009-2012.

## Part of electronic theses

Concerning **the development of digital PhD theses in** relation to all reported PhD theses over the years 2009-2012, the French and German libraries reported together 6,258 dissertations (table 4).

<table><caption>Table 4: Number of digital PhD theses (only ETD, 2009-2012)</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>France</th><th>Germany</th><th>total</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>2009</th><td>344</td><td>1005</td><td>1349</td></tr><tr><th>2010</th><td>470</td><td>970</td><td>1440</td></tr><tr><th>2011</th><td>466</td><td>1023</td><td>1489</td></tr><tr><th>2012</th><td>859</td><td>1121</td><td>1980</td></tr><tr><th>total</th><td>2139</td><td>4119</td><td>6258</td></tr></tbody></table>

Digital theses represent 38% of the whole sample. Yet, there are two differences:

The German part (43%) is higher than the French (31%).

In both countries, the part of ETD increased steadily from 2009 to 2012. In France, their percentage increased from 20% to 45%. In Germany, the figures show a growth from 41% to 47%.

In Germany the libraries answered to the question by the number they control, i.e. the number of ETD deposited in their institutional repository (IR). But not all ETD theses are listed in the library repositories. Thus their reported figures are an underestimate. For an example, we examined the chosen publishing channels for dissertations at the Faculty for Art and Humanities at the University of Paderborn (figure 1):
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1: Publishing channels of PhD theses of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Paderborn over the years 2009-2012 (in percent), N=78</figcaption></figure>

For instance, regarding Open Access dissertations, as part of all ETD, figure 1 indicates that a small portion of dissertations, which are published Open Access, are not listed in the Library Institutional Repositories, but published elsewhere online. The Chart also shows that in Arts and Humanities, Open Access is much less popular than for instance in the Exact Sciences.

## ETD in Open Access

The aim of the study was to exhibit the present status of the distribution channels and the development of the number of academic dissertations, specifically, which portion is published Open Access.

Due to embargo measures and restrictions, not all ETD are freely available via Open Access. The libraries reported 1,165 (French), 4,072 (German), and in total 5,237 dissertations to be Open Access (table 5).

<table><caption>Table 5: Number of digital PhD theses in Open Access (ETD in OA, 2009-2012)</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>France</th><th>Germany</th><th>total</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>2009</th><td>207</td><td>994</td><td>1201</td></tr><tr><th>2010</th><td>298</td><td>959</td><td>1257</td></tr><tr><th>2011</th><td>213</td><td>1009</td><td>1222</td></tr><tr><th>2012</th><td>447</td><td>1110</td><td>1557</td></tr><tr><th>total</th><td>1165</td><td>4072</td><td>5237</td></tr></tbody></table>

These digital PhD theses in Open Access represent 32% from all reported theses, but 84% from all digital theses (ETD). This means that while one third of all theses are freely available on the Internet, this percentage raises when only considering the theses that are already processed in digital format: here, four out of five theses are in Open Access. Again, two observations:

The statistics show a clear difference between France and Germany. While in France, the part of OA theses between 2009 and 2012 is 17%, the German libraries reported 43%. Another difference is the percentage of OA theses when considering only digital theses. Here, the part in France is 54% while nearly all German ETD are reported as
OA (99%). The probable reason for this difference was already mentioned above: obviously the German libraries only reported the figures from their institutional repository where virtually all ETD are Open Access; but again, not all ETD theses are disseminated via the library-hosted repositories.

Also, the part of French OA digital theses doubled between 2009 and 2012, from 12% to 24% of all theses. Yet, when only considering the digital theses, the part of OA decreased from 60% to 52%, i.e. that the part of restricted access increased at the same time. In Germany, the part of OA theses compared to all theses increased slightly from 41% to 47%, while the part of OA theses of all ETD remains stable on a high level (99%, see above).

## Theses with restricted or no access

Not all digital PhD theses (ETD) are Open Access due to embargo periods, on-campus restrictions or for containing confidential material.

Regarding the **development of reported non-Open Access PhD theses**, compared to all reported ETD, French and German Libraries reported 420 (French), 47 (German), and in total 467 dissertations to be non-Open Access (table 6).

<table><caption>Table 6: Number of digital PhD theses with restricted or no access (ETD not OA, 2009-2012)</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>France</th><th>Germany</th><th>total</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>2009</th><td>22</td><td>11</td><td>33</td></tr><tr><th>2010</th><td>27</td><td>11</td><td>38</td></tr><tr><th>2011</th><td>42</td><td>14</td><td>56</td></tr><tr><th>2012</th><td>329</td><td>11</td><td>340</td></tr><tr><th>total</th><td>420</td><td>47</td><td>467</td></tr></tbody></table>

The overall part of theses with restricted or no access is 3% - 6% of all theses in France (print and electronic) and near to 0% in Germany. These figures must be interpreted carefully because for 26% of all digital theses, the French libraries did not qualify the status regarding Open Access while for reasons indicated above (answers limited to institutional repositories) German libraries qualified nearly all of their ETD as "Open Access".

However, the figures show that in France, the part of theses with restricted or no access increased, from 1% in 2009 to 17% in 2012 in particular.

German libraries reported that they do not impose any restrictions or an embargo as part of their policy. Over the four years less than 2% of ETD are subject to restrictions, and only as and when requested by the author. That means that at least 98% of the reported digital theses are Open Access.

## 3.4. Access Restrictions

How do universities handle access restrictions? Do they? And if so, in which way? Only academic libraries answered to these questions, and French and German libraries answered in a quite different way.
With regard to embargoes and restrictions, we distinguish 'embargo and restrictions' as enforced by the Library as their policy, and restrictions as requested by the author for e.g. confidential matter reasons.

In France, except one, all French academic libraries reported that they accept and can handle on-campus-only access, i.e. restricted access limited to the intranet or workspace. Also, 75% of them manage embargo periods, ranging from six months to more than two years. Only one library said that they did not allow access restrictions (table 7).

<table><caption>Table 7: Offered embargo periods reported by the libraries</caption><thead><tr><td>Imposed Embargo Periods</td><td>France</td><td>Germany</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Up to 6 months</td><td>7</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>6-12 months</td><td>7</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>1-2 years</td><td>8</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Over 2 years</td><td>9</td><td>0</td></tr></tbody></table>

German libraries answered that they do not impose any restrictions or embargoes as part of their policy.

Table 8 distinguishes between three types of access restrictions, as reported by the libraries: confidential theses (no access), embargoed theses, and theses with restricted access limited to the campus (Intranet). Overall, the On-Campus limitation represents 65% of all access restrictions, compared to 25% for embargoes and 10% for confidentiality. But again, the differences between both countries are significant.

<table><caption>Table 8: Number of digital PhD theses with restricted or no access, per type of restriction (ETD not OA, 2009-2012)</caption><thead><tr><td></td><td>France</td><td>Germany</td><td>total</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Confidential</td><td>47</td><td>0</td><td>47</td></tr><tr><td>Embargo</td><td>69</td><td>47</td><td>116</td></tr><tr><td>On-Campus</td><td>304</td><td>0</td><td>304</td></tr><tr><td>total</td><td>420</td><td>47</td><td>467</td></tr></tbody></table>

Figure 2 shows the distribution of access restriction related to the overall number of digital theses. While 84% ETD are freely available (Open Access), 5% are limited to on-campus access, 2% are under embargo and 1% are confidential. For 9%, data on accessibility are missing.
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2: Openness and accessibility of ETD (both countries, 2009-2012)</figcaption></figure>

The differences between the French and German samples are significant. The same figure limited to France is quite different (figure 3). Only 54% ETD are freely available. 14% are available only on the campus or via Intranet, 3% are embargoed and 2% are confidential. For 26%, data are missing.

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3: Openness and accessibility of ETD (only France, 2009-2012)</figcaption></figure>

Because of the small sample size, these differences should not be over-interpreted. Yet, a future survey should be sensitive about this kind of country-specific differences.

## Tendencies of access restrictions

The German figures remain stable over the surveyed period. With regard to embargoes and on-campus-only-access restrictions, only two of the libraries declared a 'yes', but then in the comment they stated that they only practise this if the candidate asked for. They mention that there have been only very few (less than 1.1%) cases. The German University Libraries do not impose or suggest on-campus-restrictions or embargoes on their own. Embargoes or restrictions (on-campus-only) are applied only on individual cases on request by the student (less than 1%).
In France, the part of confidential electronic theses remains stable around 2% while the percentage of embargoes and on-campus access restrictions increased between 2009 and 2012, from 1% to 7% (embargo) and from 5% to 28% (on-campus).

## 3.5. Synthesis

### France

* The part of OA theses compared to all theses increased from 12% of the PhD theses in 2009 to 24% of the PhD theses in 2012.

* There is an increase of embargoed PhD theses as enforced by the libraries, from 1% of the ETD in 2009 to 7% in 2012.

* On-campus access restrictions of ETD increased from 5% in 2009 to 28% in 2012.

* The part of confidential theses remains stable (2% of ETD).

### Germany

* The number of OA theses increased from 41% of all theses in 2009 to 47% in 2012.

* Furthermore, in Germany, very few libraries reported access restrictions. There are however some individual cases where the author asked for restrictions because of confidential material etc. These cases are in total less than 1% of the total.

## 3.6. Education and Assistance

Roughly half of the respondents declare that they offer regular training classes and information material for the technical preparation of a thesis.

<table><caption>Table 11: Training and education on ETD (absolute figures)</caption><thead><tr><td></td><td>France</td><td>Germany</td><td>Total</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Academic Libraries</td><td>8</td><td>6</td><td>14</td></tr><tr><td>Graduate Schools</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>8</td><td>6</td><td>14</td></tr></tbody></table>

This education and assistance include legal aspects such as restrictions and embargo. Only academic libraries appear to be concerned and engaged while, at least in our sample, graduate schools do not offer such service so far for their PhD students.

# 4. Discussion

## 4.1. Methodology

The overall response rate is 52% - satisfying for an online survey but to be seen with caution because of the small sample size and because of the nearly complete lack of exploitable answers from French graduate schools and German graduation committees.
There may be a bias in that especially libraries more active in Open Access and digital PhD theses did more likely answer the questionnaire.

Also, the absolute figures on Open Access ETD are probably an underestimate because especially the German libraries may have misunderstood the question, providing figures only from their institutional repository without figures on digital dissertations which are not in their own repository. This means too, that probably the percentage of OA PhD theses in the EDAR survey may be an underestimate as other OA-services of dissemination and preservation are not recorded by the Library (e.g. OA-journals, international research field specific archives, Institute/Graduate School server etc.).

For the analysis of the responses by the libraries we resorted to two different strategies: we added all numbers as reported by the libraries of a country (France). These results reflect the present knowledge of the librarians who responded, which proved to be quite incomplete.

Alternatively we picked only those responses which gave complete numbers for all years asked and which we trusted (excluding the one where the total number of PhD was given as lower than the portion of ETD). This however reduced drastically the dataset and increased the bias that these are those few universities with the most engaged and knowledgeable librarians, and not just the average estimate over all universities (Germany).

A future survey will have to be non-anonymous to allow for asking back, and for checking and researching to complete, correct, or check the locally known numbers.

## 4.2. Comparison with former studies

Compared to our 2013 review on access restrictions, the survey data appear consistent and comparable.

<table><caption>Table 12: Review of former studies and selected repositories (from Schöpfel & Prost 2013b)</caption><thead><tr><td>Institution</td><td>Sample</td><td>% open access</td><td>% restricted access</td><td>% on campus</td><td>% embargo</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>ProQuest (US)</td><td>50000+</td><td>95%</td><td>5%</td><td>n/a</td><td>5%</td></tr><tr><td>Texas (Austin)</td><td>11539</td><td>92%</td><td>8%</td><td>8%</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>PUC Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)</td><td>2787</td><td>89%</td><td>11%</td><td>n/a</td><td>11%</td></tr><tr><td>West Virginia</td><td>4600+</td><td>85%</td><td>15%</td><td>15%</td><td>0.3%</td></tr><tr><td>Elorida State</td><td>3709</td><td>84%</td><td>16%</td><td>n/a</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>ABES (France)</td><td>10631</td><td>80%</td><td>20%</td><td>20%</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>Lille 1 (France)</td><td>833</td><td>79%</td><td>21%</td><td>15.5%</td><td>5.5%</td></tr><tr><td>Auckland (Australia)</td><td>3088</td><td>72%</td><td>28%</td><td>28%</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>Lorraine (France)</td><td>52</td><td>71%</td><td>29%</td><td>29%</td><td>n/a</td></tr><tr><td>Maryland</td><td>2050</td><td>68%</td><td>32%</td><td>n/a</td><td>32%</td></tr><tr><td>Valenciennes (France)</td><td>35</td><td>63%</td><td>37%</td><td>31%</td><td>6%</td></tr><tr><td>Ligne (Belgium)</td><td>191</td><td>57%</td><td>43%</td><td>33%</td><td>10%</td></tr><tr><td>Virginia Tech</td><td>20386</td><td>54%</td><td>46%</td><td>n/a</td><td>46%</td></tr><tr><td>Amherst</td><td>n/a</td><td>48%</td><td>52%</td><td>32%</td><td>20%</td></tr><tr><td>Lille 3 (France)</td><td>124</td><td>40%</td><td>60%</td><td>n/a</td><td>n/a</td></tr></tbody></table>

In particular, the following features seem consistent:

* Large differences of openness between institutions, ranging from 40% to 92% of all deposited theses in France; in Germany 98% of deposited theses are OA. This conforms to the situation in the United States, where one sees a disjunctive set of
Universities: a) those with an embargo policy which yield numbers as in France, and those without, which are similar to the German numbers of rare cases.

* Without the ProQuest figures, the part of ETD with limited access is 17%, ranging from 10% to more than 50% in France; in Germany only students have occasionally the request for restrictions or an embargo due to confidential etc. material. This is a 1% rate.

* Data on specific forms of access restrictions (embargo, intranet) are often missing or incomplete. In France, 17% are embargoed for six months to two years or longer (EDAR survey 3%) while the other 9% can only be accessed on-campus (EDAR survey 14%).

* In Germany, all PhD theses must be registered at the university library, but only those which are handed in as ETD are archived at the local OA-IR. There may be more being published through other channels.

### 4.3. Libraries and graduation committees: the German situation

Only the academic libraries appear interested and competent. Obviously, graduate schools or committees (PA) are not really concerned by the processing and dissemination of PhD theses. They do not control and/or follow-up document processing statistics (or do not communicate about the topic). Even if individual members of a graduate school or committee may express personal attitudes on Open Access, no significant institutional opinion or policy can be identified. Sometimes, their information may be simply misleading. For instance, one respondent stated that "all dissertations of my faculty are of course fully Open Access. Anything else would not make sense nowadays." However, the analysis of the institutional repository's statistics revealed that the real number of OA theses is only 50% of all, which means that this PA does not know the candidates' decisions.

On the other hand, academic libraries are directly concerned with the preservation and dissemination of PhD theses. They are responsive, and they provide at least partial figures on the processing of PhD theses. But they do not control all aspects, do not keep exhaustive statistics of key elements (such as embargo), some figures are missing, were not conserved, are not (no longer) available or were simply not communicated.

The general impression is contradictory: In general, respondents appear in favour of Open Access. But the survey reveals a lack of awareness and also, at least partially missing follow-up of figures and decisions.

One of the major concerns of both institutions is with legal compliance and, especially in Germany, plagiarism. Their global approach appears to be risk avoidance with regards to intellectual and industrial property rights.

The German copy right law "Urheberrecht" is in contrast to the Anglo-Saxon legislation a security right of the creator covering all creations. This gives full legal freedom to the candidate in decision of the publication channel. He/she has to prove to the University that the thesis has been published. Thus the author is the one who has to care to get his/her thesis published; the publication channel is his/her choice. He/she can send either several print-copies to the local University Library or to a publisher for print publication or he/she can send an electronic copy to the University Library for publishing in its Open Access Institutional Repository (OA-IR), or can publish the thesis elsewhere online.
If the work is published, the library reports to the graduation committee the 'has been published' note. The candidate informs then the graduation committee to issue the permission to the candidate to use the title 'Dr'.

### 4.4. Bottlenecks

The EDAR pre-study exhibited three major deficiencies or obstacles towards a more professional policy regarding Open Access of digital dissertations in Germany:

1. Lacking contact and information (including material and education) between the stakeholders, i.e. university library, PA staff member, PhD candidate.

2. A mismatch between the persons in charge and the persons to bear the consequences: the candidate has the exclusive right to decide the publication channel, Open Access or not. The PA staff is not responsible for the dissemination of the thesis, its implication is only temporary and may therefore lack interest and knowledge about copyright, restrictions, patent law, digital publication channels, Open Access initiative, technical requirements for ETD (metadata standards, interoperability, long term archiving etc.), and full re-use of the scientific content for other research.

3. A lack of sharing, networking and exchange of experience (virtual community) between professionals, PA staff and the PhD students.

Whereas in France, the problem can be described on three different levels:

1. Transition from print to digital: Libraries and graduate schools are still in the transition, handling both print and digital versions. This may at least partly explain little experience and lacking statistics.

2. A strong protection by intellectual property law: While administrative law allows for on-campus dissemination without authorization (Open Access to administrative documents), larger digital dissemination is not possible without formal permission by the PhD student. This contributes to a high rate of access restriction and on-campus (intranet) availability and explains why French universities with their academic libraries in charge of the dissemination of PhD theses must necessarily find solutions between no access at all and free (open) access.

Lack of collaboration between graduate schools and academic libraries: At least for this aspect, both institutions are not working together and do not coordinate their action regarding Open Access and dissemination of ETD. One reason may be that French academic libraries are closely related to their university while graduate schools may depend on different universities, with more than one graduate school on the same campus.

## 5. Future Progress

The project results will be presented at the 17th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD 2014) at Leicester in July 2014 (Schöpfel et al. 2014 forthcoming). Another publication is under preparation.

Following the EDAR project, the project team prepares a proposal for the European Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. H2020 supports the achievement and functioning of the European Research Area in which researchers, scientific knowledge and technology circulate freely, by
strengthening cooperation both between the Union and the Member States, and among the Member States, in particular through the application of a coherent set of rules. Also, a set of activities aims at optimizing the use of national facilities by integrating them into networks and opening their doors to all European researchers.

The project "Electronic Theses and Dissertations for Open Access" (ETD4OA) will support the coordination of European infrastructures and open access (OA) policies in the field of electronic theses and dissertations. Together with stakeholders and OA initiatives, it will address barriers and access restrictions, and it will take actions (active communication, recommendations, advice) to promote and develop input, openness and impact of ETD in existing open repositories and portals. The objectives of the ETD4OA project are

1. to produce and disseminate reliable and consistent empirical data on the processing of electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) in a wide set of European countries with their different infrastructures and legal environments, in particular to address the problems and variations of access restrictions;

2. to contribute to the coordination of open access policies regarding ETD in the European research era and to build a sustainable European community focussing on the open access to research theses;

3. to contribute to the understanding and development of the acceptance, uptake and usage of open access ETD infrastructures, by the research communities, by industry and business and by the Internet community;

4. to develop practical and helpful guidelines and recommendations in order to raise awareness about the challenge, and to support cooperation with developing regions and countries, in order to increase the part of ETD disseminated broadly and fast in institutional repositories without any restrictions as the standard solution.

The European infrastructure for this already exists, with the interconnection of institutional repositories and other open archives and concurrently registered and searchable by the DART-Europe portal. The ETD4OA project has not the ambition to develop a new infrastructure or prototype. Today, the problem of open access to ETD lies upstream in local contexts that facilitate decisions in favour of embargoes or restricted access (on-campus access, intranet). To put it in a simple way, pipes exist, but it lacks the fuel and the pressure.

The input to the University central portal varies depending on the country and the research field, and university. To increase the OA-percentage is a problem on many levels, technical (workflow) as well as legal, administrative (regulatory) and tradition and ethics. The answer proposed by the project is awareness raising, lobbying at the national and European policy level, a thorough communication net both for candidates as well as for the responsible local staff, as well as the production of training material for them.

ETD4OA aims at increasing the use of national facilities, i.e. institutional repositories and OA infrastructures, by integrating them into an emerging network of the people, responsible and involved, for European research theses. Its aims are to exploit synergies between national and Union initiatives by setting up partnerships between relevant policy makers and funding bodies or advisory groups, in order to facilitate the development of global research infrastructures and the cooperation of European infrastructures with their non-European counterparts (in particular US and Russia), ensuring their global interoperability and access.
Some of the research questions the project will address: Which are the (apparently) increasing demands by the authors for keeping the document not open to the public for fear of copyright infringement, e.g. of figures used? Is there increasing pressure of commercial publishers to not allow OA distribution if a book is planned? Are there more recent other ways of posting an ETD in OA which are not seen and thus not counted by the institutional repository network, such as for instance institutional servers, personal websites, gold OA journal publications? Language barriers may lead to publish a thesis as a book to make use of the publisher's lectorate.

ETD4OA will be submitted within the H2020 project call H2020-INFRASUPP-2014-2, "Support to innovation, human resources, policy and international cooperation", a sub call of the H2020-INFRASUPP-2014-2015 program. The deadline of this call is September 2, 2014.

## 6. Bibliography

M.A. Gonçalves, R.K. France, E.A. Fox, E.R. Hilf, M. Hohlfeld, K. Zimmermann & T. Severiens (2001). 'Flexible Interoperability in a Federated Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations'. *Proceedings of the 20th World Conference on Open Learning and Distance Education, "The Future of Learning - Learning for the Future: Shaping the Transition"*, ICDE2001, Duesseldorf, Germany, 01 - 05 April 2001

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.25.2857&rep=rep1&type=pdf

E.R.Hilf & T. Severiens (2013). 'Was macht die Dissertationen-Online Diskussion in Deutschland?'

http://www.isn-oldenburg.de/blogs/eberhard-r-hilf/2013/01/dissonline

J. Schöpfel & U. Müller (2014). 'Evaluer la qualité des archives ouvertes : Le certificat DINI'. *Partnership* 9(1):1-21.

https://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/article/view/2733/3226

J. Schöpfel & H. Prost (2013a). 'Degrees of Secrecy in an Open Environment. The Case of Electronic Theses and Dissertations'. *ESSACHESS - Journal for Communication Studies* 6, 2(12).

http://www.essachess.com/index.php/jcs/article/view/214

J. Schöpfel & H. Prost (2013b). 'Back to Grey. Disclosure and Concealment of Electronic Theses and Dissertations'. In *GL15 Fifteenth International Conference on Grey Literature. The Grey Audit: A Field Assessment in Grey Literature*. CVTI SR, Bratislava, Slovak Republic, 2-3 December 2013.

http://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_00944662

J. Schöpfel, et al. (2014 (forthcoming)). 'Restricted vs. Open Access for Electronic Theses and Dissertations - A Problem for Public Science'. In *ETD 2014. 17th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations*. Leicester, July 23-25, 2014.
# 7. Appendices

## Appendix 1 Survey Academic Libraries French

### A. Libre accès

1. Quelle est votre politique de gestion des thèses ?

- Nous avons rejoint le dispositif national STAR pour les thèses électroniques.

- Nous sommes en phase de transition entre les thèses imprimées et les thèses électroniques (déploiement partiel dans STAR).

- Pour l'instant, nous acceptons uniquement des thèses imprimées.

2. Quelle est votre politique en ce qui concerne le libre accès ?

Y a-t-il une politique explicite en matière du libre accès aux thèses de doctorat ?
(oui/non)

Si oui:

a) dépôt en libre accès obligatoire (les thèses doivent être diffusées en libre accès)
(oui/non)

b) dépôt en libre accès recommandé (mais sans obligation) (oui/non)

### B. Restrictions

Quelles sont vos restrictions :

a) Accès uniquement sur le campus (intranet, ENT, authentification IP etc.) (oui/non)

b) Période d'embargo (pas d'accès au texte intégral pour une période limitée dans le temps) (oui/non)

c) Si oui: Quelle(s) période(s) proposez-vous (plusieurs réponses possibles) :

- Jusqu'à 6 mois

- 6 mois à 1 an

- 1 an à 2 ans

- Plus de 2 ans

### C. Statistiques

Quel est le nombre des thèses soutenues de votre université ?

a) nombre total de thèses pour les années 2012, 2011, 2010, et 2009

b) nombre total de thèses électroniques pour les années 2012, 2011, 2010, et 2009

c) nombre de thèses électroniques en libre accès pour les années 2012, 2011, 2010, et 2009

d) nombre de thèses confidentielles pour les années 2012, 2011, 2010, et 2009

e) nombre de thèses sous embargo (libre accès après une période d'embargo d'au moins six mois) pour les années 2012, 2011, 2010, et 2009

f) nombre de thèses dont l'accès est limité au campus (intranet, ENT, authentification IP etc.), pour les années 2012, 2011, 2010, et 2009

### D. Formation, information

Proposez-vous régulièrement des formations et/ou informations aux doctorants sur la rédaction d'une thèse électronique, y compris sur le cadre juridique, sur les restrictions d'accès et embargos ?

## Appendix 2 Survey Academic Libraries German

### A. Open Access Regelungen

1. Regelungen zum Umgang mit elektronischen Dissertationen:

☐ Wir akzeptieren elektronische Dissertationen und liefern sie an die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB) über die XMetaDissPlus-Schnittstelle weiter.
☐ Wir sind derzeit dabei, einen Workflow für elektronische Dissertationen zu implementieren.

☐ Wir akzeptieren bisher nur gedruckte Dissertationen.

2. Regelungen an Ihrer Universität hinsichtlich Open Access:

Gibt es eine Regelung (Policy) der Universität zu Open Access bei Dissertationen?

☐ ja ☐ nein

Falls Sie „ja“ geantwortet haben:

☐ ja ☐ nein verpflichtend: Dissertationen müssen Open Access publiziert werden.

Ausnahmen hiervon müssen beantragt werden

☐ ja ☐ nein empfohlen: Dissertationen sollen Open Access publiziert werden.

## B. Beschränkungen

Welche dieser Beschränkungen sind bei Ihnen bei Online-Dissertationen implementiert?

☐ ja ☐ nein Zugriff nur aus dem Netzwerk der Universität (Intranet, Zugriff nur nach Anmeldung etc.)

☐ ja ☐ nein Embargo (Zugriff auf dem Volltext erst nach Ablauf der Embargozeit)

Falls Sie mit „ja“ geantwortet haben:

Wir bieten die folgenden Embargo-Zeiträume an:

☐ ja ☐ nein bis zu 6 Monate

☐ ja ☐ nein länger als 6 Monate bis zu 1 Jahr

☐ ja ☐ nein länger als 1 Jahr bis zu 2 Jahren

☐ ja ☐ nein länger als 2 Jahre

## C. Statistik

Die Zahlen beziehen sich auf Ihre gesamte Universität bzw. Universitätsbibliothek:

a) Gesamtzahl der Dissertationen in den Jahren 2012, 2011, 2010 und 2009

b) Anzahl elektronischer Dissertationen in den Jahren 2012, 2011, 2010 und 2009

c) Anzahl der Open Access Dissertationen in den Jahren 2012, 2011, 2010 und 2009

d) Anzahl der nicht öffentlichen / vertraulichen elektronischen Dissertationen in den Jahren 2012, 2011, 2010 und 2009

e) Anzahl der elektronischen Dissertationen mit einer Embargozeit ab 6 Monaten Dauer in den Jahren 2012, 2011, 2010 und 2009

f) Anzahl der elektronischen Dissertationen mit anderen Zugriffbeschränkungen (z.B. nur auf dem Campus abrufbar, auch nach Ablauf der Embargozeit) in den Jahren 2012, 2011, 2010 und 2009

## D. Schulungen

Bietet Ihre Einrichtung regelmäßig Kurse oder Informationsmaterial zum Schreiben elektronischer Dissertationen an, die auch rechtliche Aspekte, wie Zugriffsbeschränkungen und Embargozeiten umfassen? ☐ ja ☐ nein

# Appendix 3 Survey Graduate Schools French

## A. Statistiques

Quel est le nombre des thèses soutenues de votre école doctorale

a) nombre total de thèses pour les années 2012, 2011, 2010, et 2009

b) nombre total de thèses électroniques pour les années 2012, 2011, 2010, et 2009

c) nombre de thèses électroniques en libre accès pour les années 2012, 2011, 2010, et 2009

d) nombre de thèses confidentielles pour les années 2012, 2011, 2010, et 2009
e) nombre de thèses sous embargo (libre accès après une période d'embargo d'au moins six mois) pour les années 2012, 2011, 2010, et 2009

f) nombre de thèses dont l'accès est limité au campus (intranet, ENT, authentification IP etc.), pour les années 2012, 2011, 2010, et 2009

B. Libre accès

1. Est-ce que votre école doctorale mène une politique explicite en matière du libre accès aux thèses de doctorat ?
(Oui/Non)

2. Si oui:

a) dépôt en libre accès obligatoire (les thèses doivent être diffusées en libre accès)
(oui/non)

b) dépôt en libre accès recommandé (mais sans obligation) (oui/non)

3. Quel est votre avis sur le libre accès ?

- Une thèse de doctorat doit être librement accessible sur Internet, sans aucune restriction (libre accès, dépôt obligatoire).

- Le libre accès est une bonne chose mais il faut laisser le choix aux doctorants de se prononcer sur la diffusion de leur thèse.

- Je pense que les thèses de doctorat ne devraient pas être publiées en libre accès sur Internet.

- Sans opinion.

C. Formation, information

Proposez-vous régulièrement des formations et/ou informations aux doctorants sur la rédaction d'une thèse électronique, y compris sur le cadre juridique, sur les restrictions d'accès et embargos ?

# Appendix 4 Survey Graduate Schools German

## A. Statistik

Die Zahlen beziehen sich auf Ihren Fachbereich/Institut/Graduiertenstudiengang

a) Gesamtzahl der Dissertationen in den Jahren 2012, 2011, 2010 und 2009

b) Anzahl elektronischer Dissertationen in den Jahren 2012, 2011, 2010 und 2009

c) Anzahl der Open Access Dissertationen in den Jahren 2012, 2011, 2010 und 2009

d) Anzahl der nicht öffentlichen / vertraulichen elektronischen Dissertationen in den Jahren 2012, 2011, 2010 und 2009

e) Anzahl der elektronischen Dissertationen mit einer Embargozeit ab 6 Monaten Dauer in den Jahren 2012, 2011, 2010 und 2009

f) Anzahl der elektronischen Dissertationen mit anderen Zugriffbeschränkungen (z.B. nur auf dem Campus zugreifbar, auch nach Ablauf der Embargozeit) in den Jahren 2012, 2011, 2010 und 2009

## B. Open Access

1. Hat Ihre Fakultät/Fachbereich/Graduiertenstudiengang eine Empfehlung (Policy) für Open Access Dissertationen? ☐ja ☐nein

Falls Sie mit „ja“ geantwortet haben:

☐ja ☐nein verpflichtend: Dissertationen müssen Open Access publiziert werden.

Ausnahmen hiervon müssen beantragt werden

☐ja ☐nein empfohlen: Dissertationen sollen Open Access publiziert werden.

2. Was ist Ihre persönliche Einstellung zu Open Access bei Dissertationen? Ich stimme den folgenden Aussagen zu:

☐stimme zu ☐stimme nicht zu: Alle Dissertationen sollten Open Access im Internet verfügbar sein, ohne irgendwelche Einschränkungen.
☐stimme zu ☐stimme nicht zu: Open Access ist eine gute Sache, aber wir sollten es den Doktoranden überlassen, über den Publikationsweg zu entscheiden.

☐stimme zu ☐stimme nicht zu: Dissertationen sollten nicht Open Access publiziert werden.

☐stimme zu ☐stimme nicht zu: Ich habe keine oder eine andere Meinung hierzu.

Was ich hierzu noch mitteilen möchte: ____________________________________

C. Schulungen:

Bietet Ihre Einrichtung regelmäßig Kurse oder Informationsmaterial zum Schreiben elektronischer Dissertationen an, die auch rechtliche Aspekte, wie Zugriffsbeschränkungen und Embargozeiten umfassen? ☐ja ☐nein