Shodhganga Metadata Standards and Other Electronic Theses & Dissertations (ETD) Standards: A Comparative Study and Analysis

Abstract

Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) play a crucial role as valuable scholarly resources, requiring interoperable and internationally standardized metadata for effective discovery and sharing. Shodhganga, hosted by the INFLIBNET Centre, stands as a prominent repository for ETDs in India. It serves as a vital platform for preserving and disseminating research work conducted in academic institutions across the country. Since its establishment in 2011, Shodhganga has been collecting theses data from various universities and institutions in India. Similarly, repositories worldwide have recognized the significance of ETDs and have been established to collect and distribute these valuable works, providing researchers and the academic community with access to a wealth of knowledge. Notable repositories include ProQuestGlobal (PQDT), which hosts a comprehensive collection of ETDs from universities worldwide. DART-Europe E-theses Portal acts as a collaborative platform, granting centralized access to ETDs from European universities. The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is an international organization dedicated to promoting ETD adoption and dissemination. Additionally, PQDT Open, a subset of ProQuest, provides access to a substantial collection of open-access Theses and Dissertations. These repositories serve as invaluable resources, enabling researchers to explore a wide range of research topics and facilitating knowledge sharing within the academic community. To ensure effective organization and description of the stored ETDs, repositories adhere to specific metadata standards. These standards guarantee consistent capture of essential details, such as Author names, Titles, Summaries, Subject categories, and Keywords. By employing these standards, repositories, simplify the process of discovering and utilizing ETDs, making research more streamlined and accessible. In line with the importance of metadata standards, this paper aims at comparing and analyzing the metadata standards employed by Shodhganga with other established ETD standards. The study seeks to identify similarities and differences between Shodhganga and widely implemented ETD standards. The outcomes of this analysis will contribute to advancing knowledge in metadata practices within the ETD field, ultimately aiding in the development of improved standards for ETD repositories.