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Georgia State University

Open Access ETDs Shouldn’t Limit Opportunities for Future Scholarly Publication

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As reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, newly-minted scholars shouldn’t worry that publishing their electronic theses or dissertations in open access repositories will unduly limit their future publishing opportunities, a 2011 survey reveals.

In the study, to be published in the May 2013 issue of College & Research Libraries and available now as a preprint, 82 percent of the editors of social sciences, arts, and humanities journals and over half of university press directors surveyed said they would consider publishing articles that originated as open access ETDs.

These findings form the basis of the forthcoming article, “Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities?”, co-authored by Dr. Nancy Seamans, Dean of University Libraries, Georgia State University.

Since Summer Semester 2012, Georgia State University has required that all students seeking advanced degrees publish their master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation in the Digital Archive @ Georgia State University as a condition for fulfillment of that degree.