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Viewing Results for

1999/2000 ETD User Survey


1. Where do you work/study?

5.92%\% Industry (9/152 responses)
5.92%\% School (9/152 responses)
74.34%\% University (113/152 responses)
13.82%\% Other (21/152 responses)
97.24% of the people who took this survey
(141 / 145) answered this question.

Other Responses (21 for this question)
"china"
"college"
"community college"
"�cole Secondaire de Casselman"
"Government"
"home"
"institute student"
"library"
"other"( 10 ) responses
"Public education"
"Research centre"
"School/University"

2. What do you do?

28.32%\% Researcher (49/173 responses)
3.47%\% Librarian (6/173 responses)
13.87%\% Faculty (24/173 responses)
9.83%\% Teacher (17/173 responses)
44.51%\% Other (77/173 responses)
97.24% of the people who took this survey
(141 / 145) answered this question.

Other Responses (77 for this question)
"A course on electronics&telecommunication engineering"
"Administrator"( 2 ) responses
"business"
"Economic Development"
"engineering manager"
"ETD consultant"
"fellowship"
"Graduate Student"
"librarian working on ETD project"
"MS student"
"nursing"
"other"( 36 ) responses
"phd student"
"PRINCIPAL"
"research assistant"
"student"( 25 ) responses
"study"

3. What type of computer are you using?

0.69%\% Don't know (1/144 responses)
2.78%\% Unix-based (4/144 responses)
2.08%\% Mac (3/144 responses)
88.19%\% PC (127/144 responses)
6.25%\% Other (9/144 responses)
95.86% of the people who took this survey
(139 / 145) answered this question.

Other Responses (9 for this question)
"All kinds"
"also run a unix system"
"Gateway"
"Labtop"
"other"( 4 ) responses
"webtv"

4. What is the speed/type of connection are you using?

0%\% Slower than 14.4kbps (0/138 responses)
2.17%\% 14.4 kbps (3/138 responses)
10.87%\% 28.8 kbps (15/138 responses)
9.42%\% 36.6 kbps (13/138 responses)
25.36%\% 56 kbps (35/138 responses)
7.25%\% ISDN (10/138 responses)
10.14%\% Ethernet (14/138 responses)
5.8%\% T1 (8/138 responses)
7.97%\% Cable modem (11/138 responses)
21.01%\% Don't know (29/138 responses)
95.17% of the people who took this survey
(138 / 145) answered this question.

5. Are you familiar with Adobe PDF?

74.64%\% Yes (103/138 responses)
25.36%\% No (35/138 responses)
95.17% of the people who took this survey
(138 / 145) answered this question.

6. Are you familiar with online databases?

66.42%\% Yes (91/137 responses)
33.58%\% No (46/137 responses)
94.48% of the people who took this survey
(137 / 145) answered this question.

7. If you are from a university, does your institution accept electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs)?

38.81%\% No (52/134 responses)
19.4%\% Not from a university (26/134 responses)
41.79%\% Yes (56/134 responses)
92.41% of the people who took this survey
(134 / 145) answered this question.

8. If your institution does not accept ETDs, do you think it should?

27.27%\% No opinion (33/121 responses)
66.12%\% Yes (80/121 responses)
6.61%\% No (8/121 responses)
83.45% of the people who took this survey
(121 / 145) answered this question.

9. Have you ever submitted an ETD?

88.41%\% No (122/138 responses)
11.59%\% Yes (16/138 responses)
95.17% of the people who took this survey
(138 / 145) answered this question.

10. For what purpose are you using this digital library?
Check all that apply.

52.45%\% Research (107/204 responses)
9.8%\% Job related (20/204 responses)
17.65%\% Personal interest (36/204 responses)
12.25%\% Learning about ETD's (25/204 responses)
7.84%\% Other (16/204 responses)
97.24% of the people who took this survey
(141 / 145) answered this question.

Other Responses (16 for this question)
"bored"
"Exploring how many ETD are in the discipline of History"
"help on bibliography"
"learning sgml"
"other"( 9 ) responses
"seeking information about my final project"
"Submitting ETD"
"writing article"

11. Did you download any ETDs?
If so, how many?

0%\% more than 10 (0/135 responses)
6.67%\% 3-5 (9/135 responses)
1.48%\% 6-10 (2/135 responses)
24.44%\% 1-2 (33/135 responses)
62.96%\% Didn't download any ETDs. (85/135 responses)
93.1% of the people who took this survey
(135 / 145) answered this question.

Other Responses (6 for this question)
">10"( 6 ) responses

13. If you downloaded any ETDs, how did you find them?
Please select all that apply.

24.24%\% Browsed by department (24/99 responses)
18.18%\% Browsed by author (18/99 responses)
57.58%\% Searched (57/99 responses)
55.86% of the people who took this survey
(81 / 145) answered this question.

14. If you downloaded any ETDs, how easy was it to find what you were looking for?

32.1%\% Fairly easy (26/81 responses)
1.23%\% sample text (1/81 responses)
22.22%\% Difficult (18/81 responses)
7.41%\% Very difficult (6/81 responses)
13.58%\% Very easy (11/81 responses)
23.46%\% Easy (19/81 responses)
55.17% of the people who took this survey
(80 / 145) answered this question.

Other Responses (1 for this question)
"How thermistor is related to amplifiers when used in measuring instruments"

15. If you searched for an ETD, how fast was the response to your search request?

9.26%\% Haven't searched (10/108 responses)
17.59%\% Slow (19/108 responses)
3.7%\% Very slow (4/108 responses)
24.07%\% Fairly fast (26/108 responses)
31.48%\% Fast (34/108 responses)
13.89%\% Very fast (15/108 responses)
74.48% of the people who took this survey
(108 / 145) answered this question.

16. How often do you plan to use Virginia Tech's ETD library?

19.85%\% Rarely (26/131 responses)
30.53%\% Occasionally (40/131 responses)
12.21%\% Monthly (16/131 responses)
26.72%\% Weekly (35/131 responses)
10.69%\% Daily (14/131 responses)
90.34% of the people who took this survey
(131 / 145) answered this question.

17. How often do you plan to use other ETD libraries?

20%\% Rarely (26/130 responses)
30.77%\% Occasionally (40/130 responses)
24.62%\% Weekly (32/130 responses)
13.08%\% Monthly (17/130 responses)
11.54%\% Daily (15/130 responses)
89.66% of the people who took this survey
(130 / 145) answered this question.

18. Would you be willing to let us contact you for further information?
If yes, please provide your name and email address below. Thank you.

80.31%\% Yes (102/127 responses)
19.69%\% No (25/127 responses)
87.59% of the people who took this survey
(127 / 145) answered this question.

Additional comments:
Please provide any comments about Virginia Tech's ETDs.

Text Responses (45 for this question)
"Download time is very long"
"etd-08042000-17470052 I was looking for the above referenced etd but could not find in seems there is an error .can you let me know when it is rectified thanks Jagdish R C"
"fine thank you !"
"From the homepage etd.vt.edu there should be an easier way to browse by department. Currently it only links to browse by author."
"Good idea."
"hmdugger@vcu.edu"
"I am discovering it now. During my "web navigation" I was trying to study how to implement a team to be able to improve quality at my own Course (Human Resouces Management) and how to be able to "survive" to resistance to change's behaviour from my collegues."
"I am interested in PReservation and conservation of library material"
"I am looking at EdD or PhD programs and anticipant electronic dissertation submission. I am an Interlibrary Loan librarian who has found a few electronic-only dissertations which the University is not prepared to download."
"I am very interested to this homepage"
"I haven't downloaded any documents because I only just discovered this resource. I am astonished and delighted that it exists but also a bit chagrined to realize that my own university (and cyber) experience has not previously made this a part of my research life."
"I like to hump goats"
"I thought that part of the purpose of developing DTDs was to share them so that institutions would standardize on them. I didn't find any opportunity to download such. Instead, I found the ETD DTD published as an HTML document, and it gets an error message from my parser."
"I want benefit from ETDS, because it is quite useful"
"I would like to be able to log on using my Virginia Tech PID from outside the VT system to access these files. Currently I can not enter the system from my internet provider at home even though I am a current student."
"I'm actually researching possible topics for a doctoral dissertation. I haven't decided if I want to pursue the advanced degree. However, because of your sie I'm thinking more favorably of it."
"I'm from Portugal and my objective is search the educational value of industrial heritage to connect this subject with the school and teachers. In Virginia Tech's ETDs i found "An Historical Coal Mining Community and its School: a study of Pocahontas Hig School, 1908-1991. I think that i will find there bibliography (also about search methods), concepts and ideas. But unfortunatly the acess to Brewster.pdf is restricted."
"I'm interested in the this project, the parent project, and the software developed at VT for the management of theses."
"It is awonderful."
"It's a good help for the search today"
"It's fairly helpful"
"just i thank to you for this service and i am adding that i couldn't find anything about Aggregate production planning. if can you help to me for this, i will be glad Thank you very much..........................berker"
"NO COMMENT"
"nothing"
"okey" - ( 5 responses)
"Please,do help third's world students, so as we can achieve our goals."
"Searching for information on finance in higher education particularlly how endowments play in financing universities"
"smart" - ( 2 responses)
"thanks by your service"
"The theses/dissertations I wished to read were not available to nonC. VT users. I do not understand the purpose of digitizing these works if their use is restricted. Is not the purpose of research to be shared? Perhaps this should be clarified to the students."
"The thesis I was looking for was published in the early 1990's. ETD is very helpful and easy to use. Please provide a link to search for and obtain a thesis that is not available electronically."
"theres a programme called htmldoc that can convert postscript to pdf that isnt mentioned in your list of resources. its licensed under gpl and is avliable from www.easysw.com. its free too."
"very good!"
"Very interesting!"
"We are just beginning to put master's theses online at PSU Harrisburg. I have taken a look at yours as a basis for comparison. I do not like having to download the thesis. Other sites put the production directly online."
"Well designed, easy to navigate; my inquiry to someone's email link received a quick and helpful response.Thanks"
"What I can say!, Thank you very much" - ( 2 responses)
"You need to provide info. on how to write a bibliography because i am stuck!"
"Your site is put together very well, it is easy to understand and learn from."


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