As a French-German research team we conducted a survey with a sample of academic libraries and graduate schools in France and Germany to determine the current situation and trends in the publishing of electronic PhD theses and dissertations (ETDs) under Open Access (OA). The percentage of OA theses varies depending on the country, the research field, and the institution. Not all ETDs are available in OA for a variety of reasons, including confidentiality, embargoes, author-imposed restrictions, and a lack of encouragement and/or requirement by libraries and graduate schools. The survey reveals qualitative and structural differences between France and Germany in this area. Here we discuss the survey findings, the methodologies used in the survey, and the various policies (or lack thereof) and their impact on ETDs and OA. A strategy is outlined for moving towards ensuring that publishing ETDs under OA becomes routine, and an electronic version becomes the only manifestation of a thesis.

European and American studies on electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) reveal that one part of digital PhD theses, even if not confidential, is limited to on-campus access and/or under embargo. A French-German research team conducted a survey with a small sample of academic libraries and graduate schools in France and Germany (16,508 theses) on the situation and tendencies from 2009 to 2012. Digital theses represent 38% of the whole sample. 84% digital theses are Open while 5% are limited to on-campus access, 2% are under embargo and 1% are confidential. For 9%, data on accessibility are missing. The 84% OA digital theses represent 32% of all theses (print and digital). The survey reveals also differences between France and Germany, especially: France: The part of OA theses compared to all theses increased from 12% of the PhD theses in 2009 to 24% of the PhD theses in 2012. There is an increase of embargoed PhD theses as enforced by the libraries, from 1% of the ETD in 2009 to 7% in 2012. On-campus access restrictions of ETD increased from 5% in 2009 to 28% in 2012. Germany: The number of OA theses increased from 41% of all theses in 2009 to 47% in 2012. Furthermore, very few libraries reported access restrictions. There are however some individual cases - less than 1% - where the author asked for restrictions because of confidential material etc. Following the EDAR project, the project team prepares a proposal for the European Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. The project Electronic Theses and Dissertations for Open Access (ETD4OA) will support the coordination of European infrastructures and open access (OA) policies in the field of electronic theses and dissertations. Together with stakeholders and OA initiatives, it will address barriers and access restrictions, and it will take actions (active communication, recommendations, advice) to promote and develop input, openness and impact of ETD in existing open repositories and portals.

Academic electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) should be openly accessible to serve best the scientific progress, and inform the scientific community as a whole on the results. This is technically supported at universities by their institutional repositories, by global open archives, and by some publishers. Over the years the percentage of ETDs which are open access (OA) is rising worldwide and in all scientific disciplines. Open, stated Peter Murray-Rust in his keynote at the ETD2014 conference at Leicester, UK, should be the default, not the exception. However, the reality is different. Even in institutional repositories (IRs) created to provide access to the scientific output of an academic institution and as a central sector of the so-called green road to open access, more or less important parts of the scientific production are missing. This is because of lack of awareness, embargo, deposit of metadata without full text, confidential content etc. ETDs, in particular, are disseminated with different status types – some are freely available, others are under embargo, confidential, restricted to campus access (encrypted or not) or not available at all. Contrary to the OA philosophy, many IRs are not fully OA (Prost & Schopfel 2014). But while other papers may be available through alternative channels (journals, monographs etc.), ETDs most often are not. Our paper summarizes empirical evidence from different studies and describes some main results from a small French-German survey. It proposes a conceptual approach designed not only for a better understanding of access restrictions but also for action and policy-making to increase the part of ETDs to be open access. At the end, the paper will present the outline of a European infrastructure project called “Electronic Theses and Dissertations for Open Access” (ETD4OA) to be submitted in the framework of the Horizon 2020 program.

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We report on the concept, progress and status of the new project Distributed Open Access Reference Citations Services, DOARC . The emphasis is to exploit especially the Open Access documents on Institutional Repositories: analyzing their reference lists for citations, analyzing the full text for research field specific two-word shingles, and use this for powerful author and user tools, one of which can be tested in a demonstrator: plotting the content affinity of scientific papers in dynamically generated graphs. Author-identification is realized by AuthorClaim .

We report on the concept, progress and status of the new project Distributed Open Access Reference Citations Services, DOARC . The emphasis is to exploit especially the Open Access documents on Institutional Repositories: analyzing their reference lists for citations, analyzing the full text for research field specific two-word shingles, and use this for powerful author and user tools, one of which can be tested in a demonstrator: plotting the content affinity of scientific papers in dynamically generated graphs. Author-identification is realized by AuthorClaim .

We present a content markup language for physics realized by extending the OMDoc format by an infrastructure for the principal concepts of physics: observables, physical systems, and experiments. The formalization of the description of physics observables follows the structural essence of the operational theory of physics measurements. The representational infrastructure for systems and experiments allow to capture the distinctive practice of physics: natural laws are supported by evidence from experiments which are described, disseminated and reproduced by others.