Thesis status by department: ESB, Biology, Psychology and KSSPE

Environmental Science and Biology:

There are currently 106 theses with 23K+ downloads in this collection (12/2016). This department was another early adopter, through the efforts of Dr. Joseph Makarewicz. These theses are well written and well researched, but what is published in Digital Commons may not contain the data sets. In some cases, the data sets are only found in the print copies. I only recently became aware of this, and I think this may need to be addressed in the future, if these are to be the official records. One way to address it would be to have the data sets submitted with the theses, as supplemental files. Supplemental files may either be public (if the box is checked) or kept private. A further possibility would be to embargo the data sets for a period of time.

The submission process: ESB still binds theses, as well as submitting a digital copy with two files on CD to Digital Commons. One file contains the metadata for the submission page, the second file contains the actual thesis. It is up to the DSR to upload the thesis, and apply a one year embargo to it.

Biology:

Biology was late to the game, and in fact, resisted the idea. Their faculty are greatly concerned that having the theses in Digital Commons will result in their research being scooped before they have a chance to publish it themselves. (See 5/2015 and 7/2015 posts for more on this). They finally agreed, but only if there is an automatic one year embargo on all theses, for which one renewal could be requested. Their theses are uploaded by the student, but often with no embargo period entered, so that has to be checked on. This is a small collection, with only 23 theses, of which 18 are public at this point, and 1400 downloads.

Psychology:

Psychology started submitted theses digitally in 2015. They currently have 13 theses in the IR. Their process is for the student to submit, and I make Sara Margolin (graduate coordinator) the administrator. She looks it over, and emails me back her approval. From her email today: I'd like to be able to give you approval, because there always exists the possibility that a student will submit to Digital Commons, but not give their final thesis to me. If I have it in hand, and it's the same as the one that's submitted to you, then we know we're good. 

KSSPE:

KSSPE has gone to a synthesis project, and in fall 2017 had students start self-submitted approved projects. The presence of a signature page indicates instructor approval to post (per Cathy Houston-Wilson, 8/23/17).

Honors theses and embargos

Given the recent decisions by the Department of Biology, and the Department of Environmental Science and Biology to embargo their Master Thesis collections, I decided I should check with the advisers of those departments regarding some 2015 Senior Honor Theses I am trying to post. Here is the email I sent and the individual responses I got:

Dear Huey, Rey and Chris,

I am getting ready to contact this year’s group of Honors students for permission to post their theses in Digital Commons. Given the embargo request for Master’s theses for your departments, I wanted to check with the three of you first since you were each an adviser for one of the students. Here are the students in question:

Kendra Andrew - Hing

Amber Altrieth – Sia

Sara Grillo – Norment

If you wish, I will wait to contact these students until a future date (2017). Please advise.

Thanks,

Kim

Hi Kim - As far as I am concerned, there does not normally need to be an embargo on senior honors theses, as they usually are not publishable. So - you can post Sara's thesis if she gives the go-ahead.
Thanks,
Chris (ESB)

Hi Kim,

It is fine to post Amber Altrieth's thesis. Thank you for asking.

Rey A. Sia, Ph.D.

Dear Kim,

Please do not post the thesis of Kendra Andrew on Digital Commons, as we are still carrying out additional experiments on her project.

Also, please do not post the thesis of Noah Reger, a Master student who recently graduated from Biology.

Best,

Huey Hing

Update on Biology Thesis project

May 20, 2015: Also anything 3+ years old can go up on Digital Commons. (RAS)

From Rey Sia on May 8, 2015:
Biology has decided to go with one year embargo on Biology theses, and would like to know who retains the copyright.

Reply on May 9, 2015:

I have been working with bepress to get this set up over the past week. We have never handled theses this way before, but I think we have a process set up that will work.

The student will retain copyright to the thesis. What they agree to is a nonexclusive right (for the College) to distribute their submission ("the Work") over the Internet and make it part of the Digital Commons @Brockport.

The student should be directed to http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/bio_theses/, where they will find links in the sidebar to formatting guidelines, uploading instructions, and a link to submit their research. As part of the submission process, they click through an agreement verifying their ownership of the information. For more specific wording, see page 2 of http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/thesis_guidelines.pdf. The student then uploads their thesis and metadata, and the system notifies me. I send an email to the adviser listed by the student, asking them to review the thesis, and give me their decision. When approval is granted by the adviser, I add the thesis with a one year embargo, and a note to the record that will generate a reminder email to be sent to the adviser at the end of the year. If the adviser replies they would like to renew the embargo, the process is repeated. (Was there an agreement about how many times it can be renewed? To keep the process manageable, it would be helpful to me if we could keep the maximum number of times the embargo could be renewed to two. Do you think that would work for your faculty?)

We have never approached the approval process this way before, so there may be a little bit of tweaking needed in the beginning. The submission form is open now, so students can start submitting anytime, but I will be at a conference on Monday and Tuesday of next week, so any faculty notifications will have to wait until after that.

In order to help the process go smoothly I will be happy to answer any questions that come up, or walk through the process with the advisers.

Reply from Rey Sia regarding embargo on 5/11/2015:

The maximum number of embargoes as two should be fine. Thank you.

Rey A. Sia, Ph.D.