EDT's broaden thesis access
By Susan Trulove
Spectrum Volume 20 Issue 21 - February 19, 1998
In 1997, there were 247,573 successful requests to view electronic theses and dissertations (EDT's) in Virginia Tech's database, according to Gail McMillan, director of the Scholarly Communication Project. Last year, 37,171 requests were made.
Of the requests, 72,854 were for PDF files--meaning the full documents were downloaded to the viewer. Total data transferred was 25,953 Mb--up from 3,229 in 1996.
The top five countries accessing EDT's were the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Canada, and South Korea. Institutions accessing ETD's were 112,876 from .edu addresses, 48,540 from .com; 3,132 from .org; 1,872 from .mil, and 1,362 from .gov.
Monthly accesses to scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/ was greatest in November, followed by October and December.
In 1996, the most frequently accessed work was Gary Seevers' 1993 dissertation, "Identification of Criteria for Delivery of Theological Education Through Distance Education: An International Delphi Study," which was visited 458 times. Robyn Hohauser's thesis for science and technology studies, "The Social Construction of Technology: The Case of LSD," was viewed 432 times. Another education dissertation was accessed 390 times. Two electrical engineering papers received about 300 visits each.
In 1997, Xiangdong Liu's 1996 dissertation in computer science, "Analysis and Reduction of Moire Patterns in Scanned Halftone Pictures," was visited 9,920 times. Paul Petrus' March 1997 electrical-engineering dissertation on "Novel Adaptive Array Algorithms and Their Impact on Cellular System Capacity," was accessed 7,656 times.
Other popular EDT's in 1997 included Gregory Agnes' engineering-mechanics dissertation on "Performance of Nonlinear Mechanical, Resonant-Shunted Piezoelectric, and Electronic Vibration Absorbers for Multi-Degree-of-Freedom Structures," (accessed 2,781 times) and Reinaldo J. Raman Gonzalez' physics dissertation, "Infrared, X-ray, and EELS Studies of Nanophase Titania" (accessed 2,492 times).
Individuals interested in the impact of the Internet on scholarship are invited to attend the seminar series on "Scholarship in the Electronic World" on Mondays at 4 p.m. in 30 Pamplin. Visit www.rgs.vt.edu/resmag/seminars.html for information regarding speakers and dates or call John Eaton at 1-5645.