Update on dance thesis process

Hello thesis authors and thesis chairs,

I have an update on digital commons thesis submission guidelines and copyrights.  According to Kim Myers, the digital commons director, after publishing the work to digital commons, the thesis author has full agency and copyright to present a portion of the thesis or a development of the thesis as they wish.

The department and the college do not require a printed  copy of the thesis if the thesis is published in digital commons.

The department requires a printed watermark department copy if the author opts out of publishing their thesis to digital commons.

In terms of guidelines, Kim recommends the thesis author follow these  three steps in digital commons.

Go to:

1) Master Thesis Guidelines

2) Submission Guide

3) Submit Research

https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/dns_theses/

1) Master  Thesis Guidelines at

https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/dns_theses/thesis_guidelines.pdf

2) Submission Guide

http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/dns_theses/dns_thesisguide.pdf

3) Submit Research

https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/submit_research.html

Thesis chairs, the thesis author is required to write an abstract in digital commons. I recommend the chair review the abstract before the thesis author publish to digital commons.

The signature page is the gateway to publishing in digital commons. This page does not need to be printed on water mark paper.

Once the thesis has been submitted to digital commons by the author, the graduate director will  receive a confirmation email from digital commons. The graduate director will ask the thesis chair to review the submission in digital commons. Once the thesis chair has approved the submission in digital commons the thesis will be published to digital commons.

Science theses with supplemental content such as data sets

http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/env_theses/108/ was a thesis that had supplemental content in the form of data sets submitted. Science theses are under a one-year embargo period, but supplemental content will still show. During the embargo period you will have to go in and uncheck the box to show supplemental content. You can add a reminder to yourself via the “Add reminder” link on the submission details screen on the left sidebar. If you don't see the “Add reminder” option as the last link at the bottom of the second section, contact support, they have to enable the setting.

Update to the thesis digitization policy posted to the thesis landing page

Based on a similar policy from the University of Florida, we have decided to undertake scanning and posting print theses in Digital Commons, subject to a takedown notice. We have added the following text to the introductory paragraphs on the Master theses landing page:
 The College at Brockport Drake Memorial Library respects the intellectual property rights of others and does not claim any copyright interest in these items. The items may be protected by copyright but are made available here under a claim of fair use (17 U.S.C. §107) for non-profit research and educational purposes. Users of these works have responsibility for determining copyright status prior to reusing, publishing or reproducing the items for purposes other than what is allowed by fair use or other copyright exemptions. Any reuse of the thesis in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder. Drake Memorial Library would like to invite individuals or organizations to contact the Digital Commons coordinator (digitalcommons@brockport.edu) with any questions or additional information they can provide.

Approved on 1/18/2017 by Bob Cushman, and on 1/25/2017 by Pam O'Sullivan - the text of her email is contained below:

I think the copyright statement you have is sound, and would cover us from any major legal actions. Since we are stating somewhere in our policies that we will take down immediately any thesis whose author contacts us and requests such action (I assume with the appropriate contact information),  I think we are adequately covered and further, that if someone with a copyright question or issue were referred to me, I would be able to make my case based on fair use in most cases.

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).

Thesis status by department: Education and Human Development

Education and Human Development:

This department was definitely a pioneer at Brockport with ETDs. They have the model for best practices in terms of process here. All theses (and now capstones) are uploaded by the student. One of the required fields is the name of their Advisor. An email is sent to the advisor notifying them when the thesis is uploaded, with a link to review it. After they review the thesis, they have 3 choices. They can approve as submitted for posting, approve with a request for minor revisions, or reject it completely - which is never done. I receive a copy of the email, if it says approve for posting, I will post the thesis and update the site. If there is a request for minor revisions, the student can upload a revised copy and have it reviewed. In general, theses are not uploaded until they are at the end of the process, so most revisions will have been completed already. Sometimes when a thesis is initially uploaded, if I notice that the size of the file is unexpectedly large, I will look at it to see if I can determine what is going on. Sometimes it is in the wrong format, other times it is loaded with large illustrations. These are dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

As of 12/14/2016 - the EDH collection: http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/ehd_theses/ has 684 theses and capstone projects, making it our largest collection, with 641,084 downloads to date. 

Updated as of 3/25/2019: 1,209 theses - 1,598,039 downloads - largest collection

Thesis status by department: Counselor Education

Counselor Education:    

The first department to add their theses, they have never been available in print. Theses dating back to 2005 had been stored on a departmental drive awaiting a time when they could be displayed electronically. The department handles obtaining all permissions, and while initial uploads were done by the DRS, in recent years their graduate assistant has taken care of it. The collection contains 171 papers and is located at http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/edc_theses/.

In 2015, the department changed from a thesis project to a capstone project, and a new collection was created called Counselor Education Capstone. http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/edc_capstone/ . There are currently 28 papers in that collection, as of 12/13/16.

Things to know:

1. Research involving the Veterans Administration is not allowed to be published, and will be subject to takedown, if inadvertently posted. Examples include: http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/edc_theses/129, http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/edc_theses/166 and http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/edc_theses/164
2. When granting new graduate assistants administrator privileges, be sure to add them to the Capstone collection, not the thesis collection.
3. Both Capstones and Theses should be gathered into the larger Thesis Collection. Filters have been set up to do this. 

Meeting with Dance re: theses

On 9/1/15, I met with Maura Keefe and Pam Callen to discuss the retrospective and current thesis situation. Dance had been among the last to begin a collection, and late last summer they gave approval. They thought they wanted to scan the theses themselves, and received additional work study funding to do so, but in the end, none of them got posted. I set up a meeting with Pam, and serendipitously Maura joined in at the end and we discussed:

·         Pam will have student upload all scanned theses to a folder within the Master Thesis FC2 Dance folder.

·         Graduate student, instead of doing Quality Control on scanned theses, will use their expertise in the field to provide 4-5 keywords for each thesis in a spreadsheet, which will also be added to the FC2 drive.

·         Pam will provide Kim with any contact information for alumni, to make obtaining permission easier.

·         Maura will draft the email that will be generated when the thesis is uploaded, to notify advisor that the grade may be posted and forward it to Kim by the end of next week. She will also verify with the rest of the department that further curation is not necessary on the “old” theses – meaning if it’s in the library to take out, it’s available for posting. (Maura, I’m not sure whether that was a final decision yesterday, but I thought it was left that you wanted to check with the other faculty).

There is a step by step submission guide (http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/dns_theses/dns_thesisguide.pdf ) posted on the site, but based on yesterday’s discussion I will need to change one sentence to reflect the submission – advisor notification – grade posting process. 

An example of Digital Commons impact (Manila student uses info from EDH thesis)

I recently received this request from a student at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila asking permission to use a questionnaire from a thesis:
From: Shaira Mae Martinez [mailto:smbm18r@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, August 17, 2015 12:00 PM
To: Myers, Kim
Subject: Request Letter for Questionnaire in Project‐ Based Learning and its Effect on Motivation In the Adolescent
Mathematics Classroom
Dear Sir/Madame,
Greetings from the people's university!
I am a senior student of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila and I'm currently taking up Bachelor of Secondary
Education major in Mathematics. I am writing an action research entitled “A Comparison between Audio‐visual aids and
Mathematical Activity as a Pedagogical Tool in Promoting Students' Learning” as a requirement for my subject Math71.
For this reason, I am asking in your good office a permission to use your questionnaires in the study which is entitled as
"Project‐ Based Learning and its Effect on Motivation In the Adolescent Mathematics Classroom" in my action research.
Rest assure that this will only be used for research purposes.
I’m hoping for your positive immediate response. Thank you and God Bless.
Sincerely,
Shaira Mae B. Martinez

I worked with the Education department, who was eventually able to tell me that she (Pamela Beres) was a teacher in the Kendall School District. A thorough search of their website revealed one email address, which gave me a clue to the protocol, and I sent the request off. Almost immediately I received an affirmative response, and was able to forward it on.

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.

 

Meeting with the ESB faculty

Thesis workflow

1.                    Does the current workflow (via CD through campus mail) work for you, or would you like to try online submission?

Current process of CD through campus mail or with print copies works fine. Posted theses can have CDs returned to department.

2.                    Any interest in having presentation from the thesis defense added as a supplemental file to the thesis?

Not really, vetting and data release issues.

3.                    Are there any ongoing concerns we should address regarding posting theses?

Embargos – concerns that data is being used before publication. Going forward would like one year embargo on theses. Department will continue to send thesis on CD when submitted, the thesis will be uploaded to Digital Commons, along with the abstract and contact information for major advisor. At the end of one year (from award date?), the thesis will become publicly available.

Department will discuss this and get back to me with their decision.

Other departmental opportunities in Digital Commons will be mentioned and discussed by faculty in the department:

1.                    Support grant requirements to maintain data

2.                    Spot for technical reports, etc.

3.                    Student research posters