ETD Center Consumer Guide

Revised 15 August 2023

General Information

  • Each ETD has a unique identifier known as an Accession Number.
  • When an ETD is published, its permanent URL has this format:
    https://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=<accession_number>
  • ETD references should always use the permanent URL.

OAI-PMH Base URL

https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/oai/oai

Sitemap

https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/etd_search_sitemap/sitemap

Search Web Interface

The ETD search web interface is https://etd.ohiolink.edu.
ETDs can be browsed by Institution/Department or Author’s Last Name.

Two ETD types

  1. A Full Text submission includes an Abstract and a PDF with optional supplemental files (media, audio, images, etc).
  2. The Abstract only does not contain a PDF or any supplemental files.

ETDs are indexed by these fields

  • Title
  • Author
  • Keyword(s)
  • Subject
  • Accession Number
  • Abstract
  • Advisor(s)
  • Degree Year
  • Institution
  • Language
  • Full text PDF (as of ETD Center 3.0, August 2021)
The full text document is always a PDF when available. Authors and Institutions have the right to embargo their ETD which prevents public display of the full text until an agreed upon future date.

Cataloging

Many Institutions catalog their ETDs and load the MARC records into their local catalog. MARC records can be generated from the ETD's OAI-PMH metadata feed using the popular, free MarcEdit tool. For details, please see the ETD Center Documentation page and refer to the ETD Metadata and OAI-PMH Harvesting section. There you'll find guides and how-to videos.

The MARC record output is in RDA, containing information from the ETD submissions and can be used as is or edited to meet local standards. In 2021, the ETDCat tool that previously generated MARC records was retired and this new process replaced it.

Metadata Harvesting

Three metadata formats

  1. oai_dc Simple (Unqualified) Dublin Core
  2. oai_etdms ETDMS 1.0
  3. marc21 MARCXML

These formats are listed at
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/oai/oai?verb=ListMetadataFormats

Selective harvesting

We support selective harvesting of ETDs based on the originating ETD program (institution) using the OAI set construct.

Web-Crawling / Bot Access

Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com) provides the ability to search scholarly content across many sources including the OhioLINK ETD Center. To allow bots to “crawl” the ETD Center, these meta tags are required for each view ETD page:

  • citation_author (Author’s Name as it appears in the ETD submission)
  • citation_title (Title of the ETD)
  • citation_dissertation_institution (Institution associated with the ETD submission)
  • citation_date (year in which the degree was earned)
  • citation_pdf_url (html escaped pdf URL - always present, empty content attribute when no full text submission or embargoed).

Additionally, crawling is performed by “bots” which cannot accept cookies. In order for the ETD center to bypass the cookie requirement for downloading a PDF, we implemented RESTful web services for this access. Please email OhioLINK support for more details.