1. ETDs in India: Towards a national repository
with value added e-theses service
Maitrayee Ghosh, PhD
10th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Uppsala, Sweden.

2. ETD initiatives in India
10th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Uppsala, Sweden.

3. E-theses and academia
There are nearly three hundred universities and one hundred R&D
institutions in India are granting PhD and masters degrees. It is reported
that nearly 10,000 PhD theses are accepted by Universities.
IITK maintains a bibliographic database (with abstract) named as Theses
(old database) in addition to DSpace full text repository.
IIT Delhi, Central Library has bibliographical list of PhD theses since 1966
to current, which includes nearly 2000 records accessible through web.
The bibliographical database of IITB has nearly four thousand records
Vidyanidhi’s multilingual database having 15,000 records in Hindi and 600
records in Kannada, more than 50,000 metadata of PhD, M.Phil, MA, M.Sc,
M Tech, ME, MD, M Com., MBA, MCA, MLIS, M.Ed., theses and
dissertations.
INFLIBNET’s national union catalogue of doctoral theses includes 1,50000
bibliographical records of PhD theses accepted by nearly two hundred
universities

4. ETD initiatives in India

5. Scope and objectives
Although there is sizeable number of ETD digital libraries in India and
maintaining a steady growth but there is no single study undertaken which looks
into how digital libraries of ETDs is functioning, what are the constraints in the
process, and how it can be improved. It’s an attempt to do a comparative study of
prominent digital libraries of ETDs with high level description of key aspects and
proposed a model for national repository.
The following two major points are discussed:
 A seamless ETD system for all universities/research institutions, which are
already member of national networks or consortia viz. INDEST, INFLIBNET as
well as libraries attached with colleges or small organizations with underdeveloped
ICT infrastructure, can join either as a data provider or simply access the e-theses
by paying membership fees.
 A model for national e-theses repository
10th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Uppsala, Sweden.

6. Methodology and selection of sample
The research method used in this study is the triangulation of three
different methods (1) e-mail questionnaire (2) face to face interview
(3)content analysis of ETD websites
Some of the points used as a basis for the selection of digital
libraries for the evaluation are:
 The importance, relevance, credibility of the organization
hosting the digital library
 Type of collection and users
 The access facilities, submission policies and user interface
The Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR)/ Directory of Open
Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) were consulted but they do not
represent a complete picture of Indian ETD repositories as the
registration is not mandatory.
10th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Uppsala, Sweden.

7. Data analysis and discussion
Age of ETD repositories in India
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
IIT
Bom
bay
Vidyanidhi
IISc
IIAP
IIT
Kanpur
IIT
Delhi
NIO
10th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Uppsala, Sweden.

8. Data analysis and discussion
State of ETD Submission policy
Mandatory, 4,
45%
, , 0%Not
mandatory, 3,
33%
, , 0%
Not known, 2,
22%
ETD Release policies:
•Campus access full text-3
•Open access Bibliography
& abstract- 1
•Open access only
bibliography-3
•Open access full text-4
10th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Uppsala, Sweden.

9. Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Submission of TDs in IIT Kanpur
2006
2005
20042003
2002
2001
306
368
364295
321
318
Total number of theses-9333
10th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Uppsala, Sweden.

10. Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
10th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Uppsala, Sweden.

11. Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
351
22
551
47
461
74
511
81
645
113 113
25
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Dissertations
Theses
10th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Uppsala, Sweden.

12. Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
10th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Uppsala, Sweden.

13. Vidyanidhi Digital library
Subject wise distribution of ETDs in
Vidyanidhi
542 1718 1987
38798
7840
Pure
Science
Applied
Science
Engineering
and
Technology
Socialand
Behavioural
Science
Artsand
Humanities
10th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Uppsala, Sweden.

14. INFLIBNET’s national online Union catalogue of Doctoral
Theses
10th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Uppsala, Sweden.

15. Thank You