Thesis Collections at UNBC

This page gives a brief overview of the thesis and disseration collections at UNBC:

History

In 1996 The University began collecting its first theses. There were approximately 21 titles in that first intake. Since then the collection has grown to include nearly 1600 titles, including: Ph.d. dissertations, masters theses and graduate projects. Upon completion students submitted a minimum of two copies of their work to the library. 1 copy was held in the Library’s main circulating collection while the other was placed in the Library’s non-circulating Special Collections. From the start students have signed a non-exclusive copyright license witht eh university to distribute their work.

In the early 2000s Graduate Programs began sending unbound theses to ProQuest for inclusion in their world renowned Thesis and Dissertations Database. Student’s signed a non-exclusive copyright license with ProQuest, which allowed ProQuest to make a digital copy of the unbound thesis for inclusion in their database. ProQuest also made microfiche copies of the theses and sent digital and fiche copies to Library and Archives Canada’s (LAC) for inclusion in the national thesis repository. The UNBC library also received fiche copies from ProQuest.

The formal relationship between ProQuest and the National library ended in 2014. Thanks to new technologies the national library felt it could receive digital copies of theses directly from Canadian post-secondary institutions. Microfiche would no longer be collected by LAC. The new technologies LAC felt solved the delivery problem were the rise of digital institutional repositories and the Open Archives Initiative protocol for automatically harvesting such repositories.

Unfortunately, a lack of funding has kept the development of institutional repositories out of reach for many smaller post-secondary institutions. In 2015 the British Columbia Electronic Library Network (BCELN) received provincial funding to establish a shared repository for all BC post-secondary libraries. Seven BC institutions became the first to adopt the shared institutional repository, including UNBC. It is hoped that this repository will soon house the complete collection of UNBC theses, dissertations and graduate projects.

A Fractured Collection

The University of Northern British Columbia’s youth can be seen in the disjointed nature of its thesis collection. The earliest theses and dissertations produced at the UNBC are available only in print from the shelves of the Geoffrey R. Weller Library. Later theses found their way into ProQuest’s Thesis and Dissertations Database and on to the Library and Archives of Canada. Since 2014, however, LAC has been unable to collect thesis or dissertation submissions from the UNBC.  A problem anticipated to be corrected by late 2015.

ProQuest’s Thesis and Dissertation Database is proprietary and its contents available only to paying customers. As a result access to UNBC theses has always been restricted. Academics with access to a major research library have generally had access to at least the later part of the collection. Graduate projects, on the other hand, have never been sent to ProQuest and have only ever been available from the shelves of the library.

As a recap, the following institutions provide access to UNBC theses:

  1. The Geoffrey R. Weller Library: print copies stored in the main circulating collection and in the non-circulating Special Collections, a copy on microfiche of theses and dissertations (not projects) since approximately 2002.  
  2. ProQuest’s Theses and Dissertations Database: digital copies of theses and dissertations since approximately 2002 until spring 2015.
  3. Library and Archives Canada: digital and microfiche copies of theses and dissertations produced from approximately 2002 to 2013.

Researchers may also find the citations of UNBC theses and dissertations scattered among a host of other proprietary and open repositories. This occurs as a result of partnerships between ProQuest or LAC and these entities. For example, researchers may find citations in the Networked Digital Library of Thesis and Dissertations’ (NDLTD) union catalogue as LAC sends its records to this group.

A single searchable repository of UNBC theses, dissertations and graduate projects has yet to become available. 

Retrospective Digitization

The Geoffrey R. Weller Library has been steadily working toward a single, searchable collection of the theses, dissertations and graduate projects produced at the UNBC. To achieve this the library has approached the problem on two fronts. First, digital copies of each thesis, dissertation and graduate project must be gathered. Second, a mechanism must be developed for obtaining digital copies of future student work.

Approximately 800 titles of theses and dissertations were digitized by ProQuest. The license students signed with this company enable ProQuest to return the digital copies to the institution for distribution in an institutional repository. ProQuest has graciously provided the library with a digital copy of each of these titles and the accompanying metadata. However, this leaves a little more than 250 theses still only available in print. An additional 500 graduate projects are also only available in print.

The library thoroughly investigated methods for digitizing its print collection. Three reputable digitization companies provided quotes for digitizing 250 titles. The quotes ranged from 15 to 25 thousand dollars dependent upon whether we required the print copies back. It was determined that all 750 print copies (including graduate projects) could be digitized in house for a little more than 5000 dollars. In the summer of 2015 the library hired a student for this purpose.

While graduating students signed a license agreement with the university, which grants the university the right to make copies of their work for library users, copyright is still held by the student. The shifting of formats from print to digital and the housing of the work in an institutional repository was something hardly envisioned by students in the early days of the university. While it is believed that the vast majority of alumni will welcome this move out of respect to our alumni we have alerted them of this change.

Taking a queue from other institutions that have retrospectively digitized their thesis collections we will attempt to contact our students regarding the digitization of their work. When Simon Fraser University digitized their collection they contacted students and asked them to respond if they did not want their thesis made available digitally.  SFU like other institutions have reasoned that, “this type of ‘negative billing’ was deemed easier for record keeping purposes as far fewer authors were going to object than were going to agree.”

We have taken the following steps to notify our students of the digitization project:

  1. In co-operation with Alumni Relations an email was sent to each student we have an address for.
  2. A print letter, mirroring the email, will also be circulated with the Update magazine in November 2015.

Moving from print to digital

In order to have a complete thesis collection available future thesis, dissertation and projects produced at UNBC must be collected digitally. The library has been working in partnership with Graduate Programs and campus IT services to provide a management system for collecting and disseminating graduate work. We anticipate that this system will be in place in the coming months.

FAQ

Who holds copyright on theses, dissertations and graduate projects produced at UNBC.

The author of the work holds copyright over what they produce at UNBC. Students have generally signed as many as three non-exclusive licenses to enable the distribution of their work: a UNBC partial copyright license, a license with Library and Archives Canada and a license with ProQuest. Students may also sell or otherwise cede their copyright to another party, such as a publisher, if they choose.

What if a student decides they do not want their work available digitally?

Students may contact any of the distributing institutions, including UNBC, to notify them of their desire to have the digital copy removed. While we would be sorry to see the research made unavailable distributors are both obligated and willing to remove the works from their collection upon notification from the student or copyright holder.

Instead of digitizing the print theses why not have alumni send you digital copies of their thesis?

Unfortunately, even if we could be certain that students retained a viable digital copy of their thesis it would be next to impossible to verify if the digital copy was truly the final approved version of the thesis.

Could you not digitize the theses without cutting the bindings?

Yes, this could have been done. Several quotes were obtained from reputable digitization companies to complete the work in this manner. The quotes ranged from 15,000 to 25,000 dollars for 250 digitized titles. The library was able to digitize over 650 titles in–house for a fraction of that cost by cutting the bindings.

Are print copies of theses, dissertations and graduate projects still available in the library?

Yes, the library will retain a print copy in its Special Collection and will continue to collect the works in print as long as Graduate Programs continues to require print submissions.

Why is the signature page missing from the electronic version of my thesis?

Rest assured that all projects, theses and dissertations in UNBC's repository have been approved and signed off by the appropriate committee. Signature pages were removed to safegaurd the signatures of professors and committee members.