ETDs, Leveraging the HKU IR

Abstract

A mandate for ETD deposit at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) was first made in 2001. Retrospective conversion projects with author consent, and assumed consent, finished in 2011, producing an ETD collection, 20,000 strong, online in open access, making HKU first in Asia with all of its thesis collection online, and perhaps the single institution in the world with the largest such collection. In 2011 these ETDs were merged into the HKU IR, The HKU Scholars Hub. Usage statistics of the Hub increased dramatically. The January 2012 Webometric rankings of world repositories showed the Hub climbing 114 places to number 50. In the race to grab stakeholder attention, the addition of ETDs to the Hub is a win / win situation. The Hub shows records for publications, grant projects, author profiles, organizations, all interlinked to each other, showing all aspects of research at HKU [use idea of CRIS?]. Professoriate profiles in the Hub show a list of their supervised research students, and links to their finished fulltext theses, also in the Hub. These links are likewise reciprocated for thesis supervisors in the thesis records. All HKU theses now carry a DOI which increases discovery, and allows import of CrossRef citation data. Rates of download of HKU ETDs have doubled almost every year since 2001. All indications lead to the conclusion that having all facets of research in one repository, add value to each other, and increase rates of discovery and re-use. This then further brings increases in invitations for collaborative research, employment, speaking engagements.., with a concomitant increase of the hosting institution.