OpenThesis.org Launches

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Theses and Dissertations have long been inaccessible due to lack of a free, powerful interface to search all of these documents in a single location

Baltimore, MD (PRWEB) January 28, 2010

A new web property called OpenThesis (http://www.openthesis.org) has been launched, which exposes theses and dissertations, making them highly accessible, useful and shareable -- at absolutely no cost.

"Theses and Dissertations have long been inaccessible due to lack of a free, powerful interface to search all of these documents in a single location," said Erik Reeves, CEO. "These documents represent an important compendium of vetted research. OpenThesis.org will ensure that these works, which authors created with formidable investments of inspiration and time, and which universities have ratified as part of awarding graduate degrees, are instantaneously available anywhere in the world via the web at no cost."

OpenThesis.org will allow authors to upload their theses/dissertations, and the documents will then be vaulted for posterity and made searchable anywhere in the world. If an author (or an author's family) has only a paper-copy of a thesis/dissertation, the site will give guidance on how to get it scanned into computer-readable form, for subsequent uploading.

OpenThesis.org also will work directly with Universities to ensure as comprehensive a database as possible. The existence of a comprehensive ETD database will benefit Universities in licensing efforts, and will benefit authors regarding networking for collaboration and jobs.

Optionally, visitors to OpenThesis will be able to register in about one minute, also for free, and gain access to special features such as the ability to organize documents into portfolios, and set up alerts for automatic notification of new documents of interest.

A few other important aspects of OpenThesis.org:

•     Authors will create accounts that will be email-verified as part of uploading their document(s), and can choose on their very own author page (http://www.OpenThesis.org/their-name) to show their contact information and/or LinkedIn profile page as desired. There's even an embargo feature-- authors can upload and indicate a future "go live" date on a given document.
•     Every College and University will have a free microsite, e.g., http://www.openthesis.org/school/The-University-of-Texas-at-Austin/results.html, such that they can link to a repository of documents from their own authors, co-branded with their logo.
•     The site will allow users to search the entire document collection, or to limit the search to a particular institution. The documents from a given institution also can be browsed within that institution's microsite.

About OpenThesis.org
OpenThesis is a searchable compendium of theses, dissertations and other academic documents from around the world. The site is completely free.

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