An Open, Online Astronomy Thesis Collection

Megan Potterbusch, a Library and Information Science graduate student at Simmons College, currently works at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Library and is one of the curators of the Astronomy Thesis Collection.

Now you can give your thesis or dissertation greater accessibility and visibility by publishing it online in the Astronomy Thesis Collection hosted on Zenodo.  This thematic, community-wide repository is curated by astronomy librarians and indexed by the NASA ADS.  Supported by CERN, OpenAire, and the European Commission, Zenodo benefits from highly reliable storage infrastructure and repository software to ensure that all files deposited into the repository will be preserved for the long-term.  While many theses are listed on ADS, the actual text is usually not available. The Astronomy Thesis Collection solves this problem by providing an easy way for authors to make the full text of their thesis openly available and discoverable.

For guidance on how to submit your thesis to the collection, check out the a summary of the guidelines below, the walkthrough on YouTube, and a detailed  blog post on the Galactic Gazette.

Guidelines for uploading your thesis to Zenodo

Below are the most important things to remember when uploading your dissertation:

  • Two DOIs are not better than one!  If your institution assigned a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) to your dissertation already, add it to the record in the space provided.  If you do not have a DOI, one will be assigned to you automatically.  Remember that ADS bibcodes and DOIs are not the same.  A bibcode is a “related/alternate identifier” that you should enter further down the page.
  • Enter the date your thesis was accepted or your graduation date for publication date. An accurate year is the most important part of this date.
  • Your affiliation in this case is your awarding university.
  • The Description field is intended for your abstract.  This field is compatible with mathematical and scientific symbols, but you must use the buttons marked with sigma (Σ), omega (Ω), and pi (Π) above the white box to make them display properly (see walk-through for more information).
  • The default Open Access license in Zenodo is Creative Commons Attribution (the most popular open-access license for non-code).  Contact your institution with further questions or learn more herehttp://creativecommons.org/choose/. Please note that should you choose Closed Access, the ADS will not be able to link to the full-text of your thesis.
  • If this thesis is already in ADS, please give us the bibcode!  Go to the “Related/alternate identifiers” tab near the bottom and select “is alternate identifier” from the drop-down menu.  See example below:
Zenodo1
  • If you previously uploaded material (e.g. datasets or drafts) related to your thesis, you can link it to your thesis by adding another related identifier field. Paste the identifier (e.g. DOI or arXiv identifier) for the supplemental material and choose the appropriate description.
    • After uploading your thesis, you may upload related material to the community page. Be sure to include the DOI for your thesis and select “is supplemented by this upload.”
  • The Thesis tab allows you to list your awarding university and to give credit to your supervisors.
Zenodo2

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to leave them in the comments below!

4 comments… add one
  • Warrick Apr 11, 2016 @ 10:11

    Am I right that I have to create an account on Zenodo in order to upload my thesis? I tried to log in with my ORCID but it’s prompted me for my email address a second time to continue.

    • Megan Potterbusch Apr 12, 2016 @ 11:30

      You are correct that you need an account with Zenodo in order to upload an item. Zenodo needs an email address to be associated with your account, so that I or other curators can contact you in case of any issues with your submission.

  • Megan Potterbusch Apr 12, 2016 @ 15:20

    For anyone who is uncertain, theses and dissertations submitted to the ATC can be in any language although the description you enter for your submission should be in English.

  • Recent grad Oct 27, 2016 @ 13:35

    Is it possible to modify or link DOIs in the future if you are waiting for your institutional library to assign one but would like to make the thesis cite-able sooner?

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