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[22273214]

Regarding the article "Readers Not Wanted: Student Writers Fight to Keep Their Work Off the Web" published online on May 13th, I believe several points of clarification are necessary, in which will elaborate on my statements.

On the point “Publishers are spreading spurious claims about electronic dissemination of theses, he says, to preserve their "dying market."; I believe I went on to say that this is an evolving landscape.  Universities, students, faculty and publishers are all making adjustments to the new digital universe.  Publishers’ markets aren’t going to die, but their traditional business models will necessarily evolve or they may indeed risk extinction.  In all fairness, the traditional fiction monograph market is tight, but technology is proving that new methods of distribution can and do work.  We want to help students, not let their works languish to the dust on a shelf.  An interesting topic for further study would be to survey literary agents about ETDs and open access; my suspicion is that they would welcome some limited Web exposure (i.e. self marketing by making samples of works available or even publishing in open access journals).  It would make their job easier to find potential clients.  They could scout out the talent instead of having to wait on self-submissions.

Further, creative writing works are no different than other intellectual property output of the University.  Our creative arts students (art, painting, theater, dance, ceramics) could make the same argument that creative writers make, but they don’t.  Instead they have capitalized on the power of the Internet for a decade now and had welcomed open access from the start.  We must remember, the thesis or dissertation is an examination document; evidence of one’s accomplishments.  Submission is required in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree.  WVU just requires electronic submission and eventual open access.  We have also offered the “Campus Encrypted” ETD distribution option since 1999, so the policy is has been well within AWP guidelines.  Since program inception in 1998 we have also offered the ETD exemption process.  Until last year, no one has requested the exemption.  From 2002 – 2007 MFA CW students submitted electronically (the program began in 2000); ½ restricted access and the other ½ granted open access.  69% of open access theses showed more evidence of successful in publishing and career endeavors.  None of our alumni have ever come back to us and requested an embargo extension beyond the maximum 5 years campus policy; no one has complained that we “hurt” their careers.

On the point of one’s “magnum opus”, one cannot base one’s career on one single work; that is not realistic.  Again, nothing changes the fact that the thesis is an examination document; it represents what one is capable of doing, not the only thing.  We had similar experiences with our history doctoral students in 1999; hence we created the “Campus Encrypted” Web distribution option.  They have a similar situation in which they must publish monographs for promotion and tenure.  10 years later many of our history doctoral students are granting open access to their dissertations.  In fact, one of our students recently published her open access dissertation as a book after receiving over 37,000 downloads of the dissertation in 2007 (see http://wvutoday.wvu.edu/news/page/6644/).

Another fact as mentioned in the above article is that over 90% of theses and dissertations need to be revised extensively before they can be published as monographs or articles.  They transform from a thesis or dissertation which proves what you know to a select group of people to a polished, refined and reworked manuscript intended for a different and broader audience.  On the horizon are increasing numbers of open access publishers; just a few days ago an open access humanities press was announced.  Indeed things change by moment in this brave new world.

As an academic argument, no one has presented data from current student experiences; that is why I wanted to shed some light on the subject.  I hope the gentle readers will understand that although this debate is often steeped with passion on the part of both artists and open access proponents, we also need to be cognizant of the sensibilities of rationality – as one of my colleagues said online when things got really heated, “Just the facts Ma’am”.

For those of you who are interested, I will be presenting a paper at the ETD 2008 Symposium in several weeks on this very topic; the full paper, WVU ETD policy recommendation and analyses will be available as open access in the NDLTD institutional repository http://docs.ndltd.org:8080/dspace/handle/2340/1.

John H. Hagen
West Virginia University Libraries

[22273214]

Correction regarding the WVU College of Creative Arts programs:  (art, music, theater and dance).

[king_ghidorah]

Mr. Hagen, I have never been able to figure out people like yourself.  I read the article in the CHE with incredulity and a mounting sense of fury.  You, sir, are the worst sort of bureaucrat: the crusading do-gooder who will mount all sorts of rationales and statistical analysis and force people to do what they do not want to do to further a pointless, personal agenda.  You hide behind the idea that you know better than the professors and graduate writers in your creative writing program what is good for them and their careers – that’s the incredibly arrogant stance of the minor public figure. 

Let me put it another way: you are a bully and your university is letting you get away with it.  You are using bureaucratic weight of a university to force your writers, those people with limited incomes and  limited professional power, to do with their work what they do not want to do.  Use whatever semantic arguments you like, this is the bottom line.

I hope you will be legally prohibited, righteously flamed, and, in the end, professionally chastised.  West Virginia U should be ashamed for letting you get this far.

Why not give writers the option of posting their material online after 5 years instead of forcing this upon them?  Seriously, why not?  It would be such a simple compromise and it might even turn you into a nice guy.  I imagine you will do a good deal of damage to your MFA program before you are done - I certainly would never join a program that would take my creative rights away from me.

I think I’ll email Mr. Brazaitis my support.

Overreacting?  Perhaps, but as an MFA writer myself, this really got me.

Buckle up, Mr. Hagen, I imagine that you are in for the bumpy ride you deserve.  Just the facts, sir.




 

[daurousseau]

Are people really getting doctorates awarded to them on the basis of creative works in literature and the performing and plastics arts? Sounds crazy to me, since Dr. Artist ought to be a scholar, not just an artist. And creative people certainly needn't waste their time and engergies on the academic treadmill.

If someone produces an opus that is to serve as their ticket to the Ph.D., then that work needs to be available to the scholarly public. That's the whole idea of joining the community of scholars. ETDs have finally made this possible without having to pay off the commercial middlemen at UMI/ProQuest.

[fiona]

I agree with the King. Hagen's views make me furious as well.

The Fiona

[scienceprof]

...
If someone produces an opus that is to serve as their ticket to the Ph.D., then that work needs to be available to the scholarly public. That's the whole idea of joining the community of scholars.

I agree with daurousseau on this.

Off topic, I think that 222723214 is the worst moniker ever.

[ideagirl]

We want to help students, not let their works languish to the dust on a shelf. 

How does it "help" students to make their work available online for free? It must be far harder for those with publishable theses/dissertations to get book contracts, if the book's already out there for free.

It's also absurd to compare visual artists with scholars and fiction writers. Visual artists make money and achieve professional milestones in different ways--a sculptor or painter has gallery or museum showings instead of publications, and sells the actual sculpture or painting rather than selling books. Making photos of their work available online doesn't cut into their ability to make money or meet those milestones at all--that would be why they, unlike scholars and writers, have embraced online access.

[dolljepopp]

Article link?

[helpful]

I assume ETD means Electronic Thesis Distribution. If it does, why not, as we require all students to do, clarify what the acronym means the first time it is used?

[kedves]

Article link?

Yes!  For the love of all that is decent, why can't you provide a link if you want people to discuss something?

[helpful]

http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i36/36a01401.htm
(easy google of the title of the article that Mr. Hagen provided).

I concur with others on this. No university policy should compell students in any discipline to have their theses or dissertations available electronically. It should be up to each student to decide on this. Mr. Hagen is wrong on this count.

If I were a creative writing student looking for graduate study, this policy at WVU would be a disincentive to me going there. I hope students contemplating going to WVU are informed of this impending policy and its possible effects on future publishing possibilities before they enroll or, at least, before they decide on a thesis topic.

[charlesr]

Mr. Hagen,

If ETD benefits the creators of the theses, then they will be happy to have you disseminate their work.  The fact that many creators object to this policy indicates that ETD does not benefit them.  It should be a voluntary process, benefitting those who stand to gain and not hurting those who stand to lose.

[kedves]

Mr. Hagen,

If ETD benefits the creators of the theses, then they will be happy to have you disseminate their work.  The fact that many creators object to this policy indicates that ETD does not benefit them.  It should be a voluntary process, benefitting those who stand to gain and not hurting those who stand to lose.

Exactly.  This doesn't seem to be a complicated issue, despite the thicket of claims in the original post.  If a university maintains an unpopular policy in a field this particular, won't that needlessly alienate applicants, students, and alumni? 

[daurousseau]

Mr. Hagen,

If ETD benefits the creators of the theses, then they will be happy to have you disseminate their work.  The fact that many creators object to this policy indicates that ETD does not benefit them.  It should be a voluntary process, benefitting those who stand to gain and not hurting those who stand to lose.

Exactly.  This doesn't seem to be a complicated issue, despite the thicket of claims in the original post.  If a university maintains an unpopular policy in a field this particular, won't that needlessly alienate applicants, students, and alumni? 

Indeed the issue is simple. It is not about who in particular benefits. It is about scholarship. Dissertations are intended to be scholarly works submitted to the judgement of the entire scholarly community. ETDs do that. No more travelling across the country to read a thesis. No more paying UMI $34 dollars for a copy.

The writers retain copyright. Universities demand that they permit copying if they want to graduate. That covers ETDs but doesn't grant anyone else the right to further copying.

If you don't want your ideas stolen, I suggest that you don't publish them or publish them in journals. Fussing about dissertations is much ado about nothing. Anything worthwhile will be published outside the dissertation format.

[king_ghidorah]

It is interesting that this popped back up again.  How'd that happen? 

I disagree that the issue is a simple one.  I didn't think this article was talking about a creative PhD program, but an MFA one.  An MFA is not an 'academic' degree, at least not in ideology - it is meant to sustain and help artists develop their crafts.  I believe the creative PhD is much the same.  The thesis is not a research project and not necessarily meant to join the scholarly debate but to broaden the world of art.  If not exactly apples and oranges, the two degrees are different in scope and purpose.

The simple issue here is that the professors (like those people here posting) in the program and the graduate students do not wish their work distributed against their will in ETDs.  I would ask those who side with Mr. Hagen how they would react if an administrator or colleague in another department decided on a policy that they honestly thought hurt their program and their discipline - not necessarily ETDS, but anything to do with, say, tenure requirements, grading policy, whatever.  That is what galls me particularly.  The professors in the WV program (presumably those who know) think this is a very bad idea; the graduate students don't want it either.  But they are powerless in the face of one minor bureaucrat.  This seems like an increasingly typical point-of-view in academia with a business model.

Does anyone know the status of this mess?