My HEI is deciding to accept only soft copies of Theses and Dissertations without the submission of hard copies. This is towards reducing cost for the students and also saving shelve space for the main library. Is this the best option?
Share your views?
Let us be paperless and save trees. Follow Eco-friendly methods. But the legal requirements prohibit only digital submission. In India University Grants Commission, the highest authority has made it mandatory to submit the hard copies of thesis along with its contents in CD
This depends on the legal restrications in your country. It is absolutely necessary to document the results and store the soft copy safely as long as it is required by your law.
Mr. Essel,
In general, I think that the PhD dissertations and MSc theses should be published. There are a lot of Publishers providing such services. So, ISBN and/or DOIs should be compulsory requested in order to exclude from plagiarism from dissertations/theses. The latter ones cannot be controlled so easylly.
No it is certainly not safe. Institutions must actually request hard and soft copies and they must make back ups of such documents
I’m not sure everyone would agree with the implied premise, that hard copies of M and D submissions are “safer” by virtue of the medium the information is supplied in i.e. a more tangible hard copy. It may be successfully argued that soft copies are safer than hard copies in that if they are backed up, losing them may be very difficult. Issues of copyright and protection as we understand them for unregistered patents won’t be discussed in this context but of course may play a role for institutions in deciding the preferred medium, again soft copies are the associate risks may be cost effectively mitigated. I think in this context i.e. M and D submissions, it may be an preference to institutions to supply hard copies to be “marked” or “graded” by reviewers as part of the evaluation or assessment process, I know that old timers such as myself prefer a hard copy to work from, a preference of course.
Submission may be performed as PDF in the University with ONE HARD copy for extra safety.
Hard copies of theses take up large storage facilities. It is expensive and time-consuming, especially for students in universities that require customized layouts of hard copy prints of thesis! We are forgetting that we have very safe online storage and repositories available to ensure the everlasting storage of theses for generations with the widest readership. The time is very near, when every institution will dance to the jingles of the paperless concept in everything, including thesis submissions!
I think that it will become normal. Older academics (like me) often have habits which mean they prefer paper copies, but I would be prepared to act as an examiner just using the electronic copy. I also like the fact that many universities now make them available online, which I can access in the same way as I normally do papers. Effectively publishing them is probably at least as safe as storing a paper copy, which can be destroyed by flood or fire.
There is a real problem with this but, each day decreases. Digital technologies allow an exhaustive comparison and offer verification results.
In this way, universities access verification resources they can rely on.
Yes, because these papers can be detected through plagiarism and plagiarism programs
Let us be paperless and save trees. Follow Eco-friendly methods. But the legal requirements prohibit only digital submission. In India University Grants Commission, the highest authority has made it mandatory to submit the hard copies of thesis along with its contents in CD
In my own view, it should be both, submission of soft and hard copies for both MSc and PhD theses should be provided.
Nowadays, yes, it can be safe for a higher education institution to accept only soft copy of theses and dissertations.
Regards
It is safe as long as the thesis and other documents proving academic requirements and publications, in original format, already form part of a curriculum vitae, fully endorsed by the Institution of Higher Education.
Canada is one of the most established eCommunities when it comes to electronic or digital documentation. Thank you Murthy
Dr Pitt, I appreciate your enthusiasm to usher yourself into the electronic arena. Thank you for your contribution.
I agree with all seniors that said hard copy is necessory for final thesis for institution library.
In a situation where the safety of data cannot be guaranteed, it is always appropriate to take optional hard copy of theses and dissertations. I agree with you on your point Dr. Otekunrin.
Perhaps, Sir Bankole. But you should not forget that libraries lack shelves space now.
I understand that electronic copy is much safer. You can publish it, receive a DOI. Be tested for plagiarism. You can give the protected copy, not allowing edition. And most important of all, people will be able to see it in many places of the world if they publish it on Internet.
Vilemar Magalhães
THOUGH, E-COPY IS BEST BUT FOR LOCAL USAGE HARD COPY IS INDISPENSABLE.
The institution must have a dropbox or place it on google docs to make double sure
Cloud storage are good but institutional repositories are the best. Thank you Dr. Mushongo
Dear Harry barton Essel, I hope your professor is following the norms and regulations of the university. But, most universities in the world are requiring both the soft and hard copies of Theses and Dissertations work. If it is only soft copy, you have to be sure that you have 100% of risks associated with risks of soft copy. For me, it is better to receive both soft and hard copy to minimize the risks of loosing these interesting findings.
In general, electronic theses and dissertations offer numerous benefits to the student, the University, and society as a whole:
· It provides increased visibility of research produced at the University.
· Sharing and collaboration among universities and students are facilitated.
· The increased visibility and accessibility often results in increased readership and more citations
· Multimedia objects data/files can be included allowing researchers to display raw research data, video, images, art clips, and simulations.
· Electronic submission introduces students to electronic publishing and trains them in the technical skills needed for digital publishing.
· Publication of theses and dissertations in electronic format is faster, cheaper, and requires less storage space.
Dear Harry Barton Essel, can you bring these issues to your professor for further discussion if you agree with the ideas? What are you planning to do after getting these interesting responses from the respondents?
Yes, you can give one pendrive each loaded with your dessertation to your advisory members including your advisory, by that we can save trees which ultimately give us oxygen, so dnt waste paper unnecessarily
Dr. Mengesha, my institution is planning on fully automating thesis supervision, submission, archiving and dissemination process so I wanted to find out whether it is a viable initiative and how other sister institutions are approach similar concepts.
From a security perspective there can be digital safeguards towards making electronic copies more viable alternative to printed records
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, please consult with a legal representative to clear this issues.
Hard Copy presents a ready reference to the reviews and addressing the advisory notes of supervisor. The hardcopies also serve a documentary proof. Soft copy can be editable even though in the form of Pdf even at any stage finally submitted/ accepted / rejected.
Submission in soft copy seems to be inevitable in future. Doing manipulation is definitely easy in soft copy but perhaps not impossible in hard copy too.
There are possibilities to implement the soft copy or e version of the dissertation and thesis. There are no harm in it and it is environment friendly and economic. But my personal view is at least one hard copy is required for the library. The e-format has many advantages but it is not the substitute of print format.
Khushpreet, your contribution is very insightful; I am grateful.
I agree with you Subir that the submission of soft copy thesis will be inevitable in the near future.
i believe soft copies are enough since it can saved in a cloud base application.
In my own opinion, education is expensive and if a student could scale all the huddles of a University education including tuition fees etc. I don't think producing hard copies of a Thesis/Dissertation should be a big thing. It should even be the delight of students to have their thesis handy. Except having soft copy Certificate is also to cut cost....smiling...
As regards space in the LIbrary, more Libraries should be built. People are still building Libraries (including personal Libraries) and publishers are still producing hard copies.
It is BEST to have both hard and soft copy.
That is a funny and interesting one Makinde. I really appreciate your contribution.
In this technological age, I believe we should accept only soft copy because it is easy now to read from laptops, tablets, phones,etc.
My department had a copy of every PhD thesis submitted since its formation, which I regarded as a demonstration of our long history. A new Head of Department came in, and ordered them to be destroyed (not put in storage). He said there is probably a copy of each in the library.
This is quite interesting; I am not a fun of hard copies though but they shouldn't have been destroyed. Anyway thank you for sharing your contribution Martin.
This issue is determined by national regulations regarding higher education and internal normative documents functioning at individual universities.
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