Intervention de l'Université de La Réunion au colloque international ETD 2016 qui s'est tenu à Lille en juillet 2016.

1. ETDs and promotion of PHD students’ research
at the University of Reunion Island, French
overseas university (Indian Ocean)

2. Reunion Island : a French overseas department
Droits Réservés Olivier Gonthier/ CC BY

3. You may have heard about Reunion Island…
Olivier Gonthier/ CC BY
Université de La
Réunion
© Université de la Réunion

4. The University of Reunion Island
northern campus (Saint Denis)
© Université de la Réunion

5. 4
2
1
2 hours away
Seven academic libraries
© Université de la Réunion. R. Carayol

6. University of Reunion Island : the only
European university in the region
14000 students over several campuses
Around 320 PhD students
Between 30 and 50 theses completed each year

7. University of Reunion Island : the only
European university in the region
21 laboratories among which 9 joint research units
with the National Center for Scientific Research
(CNRS)
3 research federations :
Arts, Social Sciences and the Humanities
Observation, dynamics and development of natural
environments
Study and enhancement of biodiversity in the south-
west Indian Ocean

8. Going live with ETDs
I. Tools and Context
II. Organisation
III. Results and Outlooks

9. Brief chronology : main steps for French
theses management
1923
Theses
legal
deposit
201620061985
generalisation
of theses
microfiching
2001
several other
databases
Decrees
organising theses
processing
SUDOC : union
academic
catalogue
including theses
Academic
libraries
catalogues
gradually into
sudoc from
2001
1988 : 1st
PhD
1982 :
University of
Reunion Island
Téléthèses : 1st national
catalogue for theses
New tools
STAR, theses.fr,
STEP
Several other
databases
Academic
libraries
catalogues
gradually
into sudoc
from 2001

10. Searching for solutions to move to ETDs and
monitoring existing tools
USA Virginia Tech
Canada
Laval
Netherland
Utrecht
Cyberthèses /
Cyberdocs
France Lyon2
Canada Montréal
And many
other
projects

11. Searching for solutions to move to ETDs and
monitoring existing tools
2007 : First attempts at electronic theses
management
2009 :
Retro digitization and online access plan for older
theses
ETD as the original form for current theses (from the
1st of January 2010)

12. French and Reunionese tools for ETDs
OTHER FRONT-ENDS
/ (archive) Google Scholar DART-EUROPE local catalogue
ARCHIVING and NATIONAL FRENCH CATALOGUES
CINES TEL (OA ETD) THESES.FR SUDOC
Defended ETDs MGMT
STAR by librarians
In progress ETDs MGMT
STEP by librarians and students
STUDENTS’ DATA
Apogée by admin. and research staff
Local repository
for restricted
access

13. STAR : a national tool for ETD’s management
Librarian’s role
Deposit of electronic theses files in STAR in both
archival and dissemination version
Descriptive and management metadata (TEF : French
electronic theses format)
Management of restricted access theses : available on
a local repository inside the university or with user
authentification

14. Once validated in STAR …
Export to the CINES repository for long time preservation
Conversion into Unimarc : automatic description of the
thesis in SUDOC
Deposit of the thesis on a platform chosen by the institution
HAL : open archive developed and maintained by the CCSD,
centre for direct scientific communication
TEL, a part of HAL, specific for theses
Permanent web adress : access to the full text
Metadata dissemination : large visibility for ETDs

15. You may have heard about Reunion Island…
Olivier Gonthier/ CC BY
Université de La
Réunion
© Université de la Réunion

19. Going live with ETDs
I. Tools and Context
II. Organisation
III. Results and Outlooks

20. Organisational aspects :
stakeholders, powers and circuit
• An urgent need : revising the workflow and keeping
it adaptable
insufficient role of the library in decision making
delayed delivery of required documents to the
library

21. • A better structuration
- Management and coordination of theses projects
(20% FTE),
-STAR and documents workflow between doctoral
schools and library (60% FTE),
-Running of descriptive metadata (10% FTE).
• A team strengthened during the training period
• Improving relationship and mutual knowledge with
the university theses related teams

22. • ETDs and students’ training : a priority
2006 : doctoral schools get confirmed as training
operators
2013 : analysing a national research assessment
advocates for a new training offer including
librarians

23. Training : « Library’s Tuesdays » program
• “How to improve your searches” : databases,
resources and tools overview, curation
• “How to use a style sheet (level 1, level 2)” and
“how to write a bibliography with Zotero”
• “Digital identity”, “open access publishing”,
“how to measure your impact using bibliometrics”
7 half-days between february and june :
169 participations (/317 registered PhD students)
• The new program is more relevant and better
meets trainees’ expectations

24. Going live with ETDs
I. Tools and Context
II. Organisation
III. Results and Outlooks

25. Retro-digitization results : 87% of defended
theses but only 27% open access
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
open access restricted access no deposit
27%
92
60%
208
13%
48
348 printed theses from 1988 to 2009

26. Current ETDs : 2010-2015
0
25
50
75
100
125
150
175
200
225
250
246 defended electronic theses from 2010 to 2015
open access restricted access no deposit being processed
9%
20%
16%
55%

27. The University of Reunion Island
northern campus (Saint Denis)
© Université de la Réunion

28. Annual results for new ETDs since 2010
• From 2014 (new workflow for theses) significant
decrease in the number of missing theses
• Changes and improvments : a real impact on theses
workflow
• Rate of available ETDs : around 85%.

29. Open Access/Restricted Access depends on
research fields
33%
86%
67%
23%
14%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Law & Economics Arts & Humanities Science & Technology
ETDs 2010-2015
restricted access
open access
77%

30. Open Access ETDs downloads : few examples
0 150 300 450 600 750 900 1050 1200 1350 1500 1650 1800
Economics
Literature
Literature
Volcanology
Health Sciences
Biology
Networks/
Telecommunication
Number of downloads
November 2015 June 2016

31. • Transition to ETDs : much more than of a simple
change of support .
Greater exposure
Easier search and navigation

32. Who is interested in Open Access Reunionese ETDs ?
Africa
23%
Asia
5%
France
34%
Other european
countries
13%
North america
12%
Other countries
13%
Geographic areas

33. From Open Access ETDs to
a wider research’s results dissemination
• Open access publications on HAL:
January 2015 : systematic OA deposit
March 2016 : 5100 listed publications, 848
full texts
French and European context evolving
towards open access for scientific
publications.

34. Outlooks and improvments
• Increasing the rate of deposit and open access
dissemination
• Open access to master’s degree dissertations
• … and preparing Open Access to research data in
Reunionese electronic theses

35. Thank you for your attention
Valérie Mesgouez
valerie.mesgouez@univ-reunion.fr