Degrees of secrecy in an open environment. The case of electronic theses and dissertations

Journal Title: ESSACHESS - Journal for Communication Studies - Year 2013, Vol 6, Issue 2

Abstract

The open access (OA) principle requires that scientific information be made widely and readily available to society. Defined in 2003 as a “comprehensive source of human knowledge and cultural heritage that has been approved by the scientific community”, open access implies that content be openly accessible and this needs the active commitment of each and every individual producer of scientific knowledge. Today, the success of the open access initiative cannot be denied. Yet, in spite of the growing success of the open access initiative, a significant part of scientific and technical information remains unavailable on the web or circulates with restrictions. Even in institutional repositories (IR) created to provide access to the scientific output of an academic institution and central vector of the so-called green road to open access, more or less important sectors of the scientific production are missing. This is because of lack of awareness, embargo, deposit of metadata without full text, confidential content etc. This problem concerns in particular electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) that are disseminated with different statuses – some are freely available, others are under embargo, confidential, restricted to campus access (encrypted or not) or no available at all. While other papers may be available through alternative channels (journals, monographs etc.), ETDs most often are not. Our paper describes a new and unexpected effect of the development of digital libraries and open access, as a paradoxical practice of hiding information from the scientific community and society, partly while sharing it with a restricted population (campus). We try to explain these different shades of grey literature in terms of different degrees of secrecy related to intellectual property, legitimate interests, expected exploitation and trade secrets, and suggest some ways of increasing availability of ETDs in an open environment (inter-lending loan and document supply, alternative format etc.). The study builds on a review of recent papers on ETDs in institutional repositories and provides empirical evidence on this reality. The study also includes an overview of the thesis mandate policies of IR as mentioned in the ROARMAP directory and an evaluation of the availability of ETDs in a small panel of European and American academic IR, networks and institutions.

Authors and Affiliations

Joachim SCHÖPFEL| Senior lecturer, director of ANRT, GERiiCO, Charles-de-Gaulle University of Lille 3, FRANCE, Hélène PROST| Information professional, INIST CNRS, associated member GERiiCO, Charles-de-Gaulle University of Lille 3, FRANCE

Keywords

Related Articles

Romania in 10 days. Sensational stories – the profile of a TV channel

This article presents the profile of the most famous private TV channel in Romania, PROTV, in a comparative analysis with the public national television, TVR. The analysis (a corpus of 7 p.m. “PROTV News”, from...

Semiotic analysis of Indian television. Advertisements and its impact on consumers: an exploratory study

Everyday consumers are exposed to a huge and wide variety of advertisements. These advertisements fall into different categories of communication media such as television, print media e.g., magazines and newspapers, cin...

The misappropriating of an innovation by Cameroonian learners: For a global and participative approach of the integration of ICTs in school

This article studies how Cameroonian learners misappropriate prescribed uses within the context of an innovation. The methodology used is based on sociology of uses and on interview. The obtained results show that l...

Serial Discourse, Studying the Police Series Audience on French Television Website

Comments posted on french television websites about police series were studied in their discursive function in order to question the continental dichotomy between popular and scholar culture. Rereading produces, create...

Expressive violence: the performative effects of subversive participatory media uses

This article discusses the communication strategies employed by 8 school shooters who used participatory media to frame their acts as well as their identity. By resorting to content analysis of 78 self-produced videos...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP9141
  • DOI -
  • Views 374
  • Downloads 22

How To Cite

Joachim SCHÖPFEL, Hélène PROST (2013). Degrees of secrecy in an open environment. The case of electronic theses and dissertations. ESSACHESS - Journal for Communication Studies, 6(2), 65-86. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-9141