ETD | ETD News @ WVU

An electrical engineering professor at Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, visited the WVU Libraries this fall to glean insight into how best to advance her institution’s Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) program.

“It’s important for us to decide our next steps based on the experience that is successful. West Virginia’s experience is well-known and respected,” Pavani said.

Ana Pavani serves on the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) Board of Directors and has been instrumental in implementing the national Brazilian ETD program as well as the development of the Latin American ETD Consortium. At PUC, Pavani designed and managed the establishment of an institutional repository, which contains ETDs, senior projects, journals, books, articles, and courseware.

Pavani is interested in evolving the Brazilian national ETD program. During her visit, she sought advice from WVU Libraries faculty and staff regarding incorporating multimedia applications in ETDs as well as preservation methodologies.

“Adding multimedia to ETDs is very important in many areas,” Pavani said. “If you can add simulations or dimensional visualization, you give a lot of value to ETDs. It’s much easier for people to understand.”

WVU has been a pioneer in multimedia ETDs. Since 2004, the NDLTD has presented the Innovative ETD Award to nine WVU graduates for integrating their scholarly work with the latest technology applications.

Some have included video clips to allow others to experience the essence of their dramatic art presentations; others included animated simulation models, software code, and data sets so other scholars may follow in their footsteps using the same software and methodologies.

PUC’s role in Brazil is quite similar to WVU’s role here as a land grant university. Brazilians look to PUC for research to improve the health and daily lives of citizens, to help business and industry grow, and to protect the environment.

For example, since 2005, the public has electronically accessed more than 120,000 times a dissertation about mountaintop removal by West Virginia native Shirley Stewart Burns. Her research, later published with WVU Press, became fodder in the ongoing MTR debate and eventually led to changes in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency policy. In Brazil, engineers and technicians rely on ETDs to learn the latest research concerning oil and offshore drilling.
“We have no doubt that the ETD program is worth it. I believe you have the same passion,” Pavani told the audience during one of her presentations.

While at WVU, in addition to meeting with Libraries faculty and staff, Pavani also talked with WVU ETD/IR Task Force representatives, faculty from the Department of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering, and representatives from the Center for Excellence in Disabilities. She also gave a presentation about her work on technology accessibility research projects for the blind and visually impaired at PUC.

Developments have included computer accessibility applications for the ETD repository, the library catalog, and online curriculum, as well as development of a wireless brain-machine interface to assist individuals with disabilities.
Her visit also included tours of the Downtown Campus Library and the West Virginia and Regional History Collection. She was most struck by the number of students in the library.

“Every place I went, there were students. They were either reading, or using the computers, or discussing in groups,” Pavani said. “I got the idea that the library is a laboratory of ideas and interaction of young people.”

Pavani is the fifth international visitor to come to campus to study the University’s ETD program. She was preceded by Yaqub Ali, International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2008; Susan Copeland, Robert Gordon University, Scotland, in 2006; Drs. Sumant and Beena Goel, Digital Dissertation Foundation of India, 2005; and Simon Bevan, Cranfield University, England, 2004.

WVU became a pioneer in the field when it established its ETD program in 1998, having become the second institution in the world to require all master’s theses and doctoral dissertations to be submitted electronically and then posted on the Web according to the student’s directions. As of spring 2011, WVU’s ETD collection contains almost 5,000 research documents, including 3,000 theses and 2,000 dissertations.