A Study on Electronic Theses and
Dissertations (ETD) and Related Issues in
University Libraries of India
Abhijit Chatterjee
University Research Fellow
Department of Library and Information Science
University of Calcutta
&
Dr. Arabinda Maiti
Assistant Professor
Department of Library and Information Science
University of Calcutta
Introduction
Research
and development activities are always key concern for
any country for their overall development.
A number of fund granting agencies are there in our country
like CSIR, NASSDOC, DESIDOC, SENDOC, UGC, ICAR, DBT,
ICMR etc.
In the last few decades the Government strengthened ICT and
research infrastructure in most of the reputed Indian institutions,
where access to knowledge resources and laboratory facilities are
adequate to students, research scholars and faculty members. But
there is no such provision of preservation and maintenance of
scholarly communication.
Electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) initiative is one such
effort through which preservation and access of theses and
dissertations become possible for the users.
Research Output in India
Research Fellowship Schemes available during 11th Five Year Plan
Name of the Scheme
Responsible Agency Amount in Cr.
Research Fellowships in Basic Sciences & Interdisciplinary areas
CSIR
870.00
GATE qualified Junior Research Fellowship (JRFGATE) Scheme
CSIR
50.00
Trans-disciplinary Fellowship Scheme
CSIR
14.00
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Fellowship Scheme (SPMF)
CSIR
16.00
Research Fellowships in all Major Subjects & Interdisciplinary Areas
UGC
1500.00
Teaching Assistantship for Doctoral Students (Non Fellowship)
UGC
150.00
Research Output in India
Annual
publications in
Web of Science
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Concept
 Benefits
 Issues of ETD

Format
 Facilities Required
 Software
 Role of the faculty and review process
 Copyright
 Access
 Storage and preservations
 Plagiarism

ETD Preservation Scenario in India
Status of ETDs in India according to openDOAR
Repository Name
No. of Records
No. of ETDs
Software
Catalysis Database
1478
NA
EPrints
CMFRI Digital Repository
3633
166
EPrints
Digital repository of Cochin University of Science &
Technology
DRS at National Institute Of Oceanography
995
999
DSpace
3763
NA
DSpace
DSpace @ GGSIPU
133
21
DSpace
dspace @ sdmcet
67
NA
DSpace
DSpace at CUSAT
3199
NA
DSpace
DSpace at Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode
511
2
DSpace
DSpace at Vidyanidhi
5480
Dspace@NITR
653
3700 PhD theses and
M.Tech dissertations full
text
95,000 Bibliographical
record and 2000 full text
37
DSpace@TU
938
543
DSpace
DU Eprint Archive
Electronic Theses and Dissertations at Indian Institute of
Science
170
NA
EPrints
206
1100
DSpace
DSpace at National Chemical Laboratory
84
DSpace
DSpace
DSpace
Status of ETDs in India according to openDOAR
Eprint@NML
No. of
Records
1419
Eprints@IARI
82
EPrints@IITD
2141
Repository Name
Etheses - A Saurashtra University Library
Service
Indian Institute of Astrophysics Repository
Institutional Repository of Intellectual
Contributions of Delhi Technological
University
Kautilya Digital Repository at IGIDR
No. of ETDs
Software
17
EPrints
1
30 PhD theses (full text)
2000 bibliographic
record
EPrints
DSpace
200
200
EPrints
4211
96
DSpace
841
NA
DSpace
193
58
DSpace
Knowledge Repository Open Network
458
39
GSDL
Librarians' Digital Library
249
5
DSpace
Mahatma Gandhi University Theses Online
National Aerospace Laboratories Institutional
Repository
ShdhaGanga: A resevior of Indian Theses
913
1128
Nitya
4297
3
EPrints
2442
2700
DSpace
Indian Initiatives
 UGC Regulation: In UGC Regulations, 2005
it is clearly mentioned that for
maintaining systematic creation, collection and compilation of cataloguing information,
herein after called “metadata” of doctoral theses in a standardized format and to
commence the process of submission of theses in electronic format, herein after called etheses, in all universities.
 National Knowledge Commission Recommendations: ‘Report to the Nation 2006’
NKC strongly advocates Peer-reviewed research papers resulting from publicly funded
research should also be made available through open access channels, subject to copyright
regulations.
 Online Catalogue of Indian Universities (Indcat): This union database of Theses covers
the bibliographic Metadata of Doctoral Theses submitted to 235 Universities/Institutes in
India. It has over 2,38,390 unique records from all subject areas.
 CSIR Exploration: CSIR Explorations is a digital library of electronic dissertations,
theses and research reports of the fellowships and projects supported by CSIR. Outside
users can easily access the abstract of the theses. There are 659 theses whose abstracts and
1477 e-Theses Bibliographies are available on the CSIR Exploration gateway.
Indian Initiatives
Krishi Prabha: KrishiPrabha is a full-text database of Indian Agricultural Doctoral
Dissertations submitted by research scholars to the 45 State/Deemed Agricultural
Universities during the period from 1.1.2000 to 31.12.2007. This database, listing about
7500 Doctoral Dissertations with a full text of about 6000 Dissertations, has been created
by Nehru Library, Ch. Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar with
financial support from Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi under its
National Agricultural Innovation Project.
 Vidyanidhi: It is India's premier Digital library initiative to facilitate the creation,
archiving and accessing of doctoral theses. Vidyanidhi is an information infrastructure, a
digital library, a portal of resources, tools and facilities for doctoral research in India.
Vidyanidhi is envisioned to evolve as a national repository and a consortium for e-theses
through participation and partnership with universities, academic institutions and other
stake holders. It hosts more than 500 full text and 50,000 bibliographic records of theses
submitted to the universities in India . Currently Vidyanidhi have 15,000 records in Hindi
and 600 records in Kannada. The project is sponsored by NISSAT, DSIR Govt. of India,
Ford Foundation and Microsoft India.

Indian Initiatives
Sodhganga: The Shodhganga, INFLIBNET Centre provides a platform for research
students to deposit their Ph.D. theses and make it available to the entire scholarly
community in open access. The repository has the ability to capture, index, store,
disseminate and preserve ETDs submitted by the researchers. The centre set-up using
DSpace, an open source digital repository software developed by MIT (Massachusetts
Institute of Technology) in partnership between Hewlett-Packard (HP). In this short span
of time 49 universities signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with INFLIBNET
Centre, Ahmedabad. Following table shows the contribution of different universities in
Sodhganga and all these theses are available freely.

Sl. No.
Contribution of ETDs in Universities of India in Sodhganga
Name of the University
No. of ETDs
1
Alagappa University
2
2
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (University)
11
3
Avinashilingam Deemed University for Women
7
4
Banaras Hindu University
1
5
Bharathiar University
1
6
Bharath University
20
7
Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj University
1
8
Cochin University of Science and Technology
414
9
Guru Nanak Dev University
1
10
Jadavpur University
2
11
Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University
77
12
Jawaharlal Nehru University
1
13
Jaypee Institute of Information Technology
15
14
Jiwaji University
112
15
Kannur University
27
16
Kurukshetra University
4
17
Lakshmibai National University of Physical Education
102
18
Madhya Pradesh Bhoj (Open) University
1
19
Maharashtra Animal and Fishery Sciences University
7
20
Mahatma Gandhi Chitrakoot Gramodaya Vishwavidyalaya
1
21
Mahatma Gandhi University
515
22
Mahatma Gandhi University(Changanassery).Dept. of Physics
1
23
Mahatma Gandhi University(Kaladi).Dept.of commerce and researc
centre
1
Contribution of ETDs in Universities of India in Sodhganga
24
Mangalore University
4
25
Manipal University
26
26
Manipur University
1
27
Manonmaniam Sundaranar University
19
28
Mizoram University
5
29
Netaji Subhas Open University
1
30
Nirma University
12
31
Panjab University
7
32
Periyar University
10
33
Pondicherry University
448
34
Prist University
3
35
Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University
2
36
Punjabi University
60
37
Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology
4
38
Saurashtra University
131
39
Shivaji University
1
40
Shobhit University
1
41
Tamil University
5
42
Tata Institute of Social Sciences
18
43
Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth
18
44
University of Calcutta
1
45
University of Calicut
26
46
University of Hyderabad
335
47
University of Kashmir
4
48
University of Madras
1
49
University of Pune
207
50
Veer Narmad South Gujarat University
22
Total
2696
Conclusion
The intellectual outputs of the researchers must be preserved in
the form of ETDs and the main aim is to avoid the duplication of
research work in any field of studies. But the main concern is the
plagiarism of the research work. The authorities should be careful
enough to look this matter seriously. The issues involved in
creation and maintenance of ETDs should be considered carefully.
There is also need to grow awareness among the professionals in
this issue. Government has already taken some valuable policy
decisions and some initiative but there is need to some rigorous
effort by all ETD stakeholders to integrate theses and
dissertations produced in Indian universities.
Thank You