USETDA 2024: 14th Annual Conference of the United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association Brigham Young University Provo, UT, United States, September 25-27, 2024

The United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association (USETDA) will hold its 14th annual conference from September 25-27, 2024 as a hybrid event on the campus of Brigham Young University (BYU), in Provo, Utah and online. We invite graduate school, disability and student services, offices of diversity, equity and inclusion, library, information technology and industry professionals to submit proposals for presentations, panel sessions, workshops, and posters.

Deadline: Proposal abstracts should be submitted on or before March 29, 2024 to be considered for the conference program. Presentations, papers, posters and video recordings should be submitted on or before September 18, 2024 for inclusion in the conference proceedings.

Audience: The 2024 USETDA conference provides excellent educational opportunities for professionals from graduate schools, libraries, academic computing and others who work with electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), institutional repositories, graduate students, and scholarly communications. Our goal is to offer relevant, practice-oriented content that supports ETD productivity improvement and ETD professionals. This includes the advancement in ETD operations, the encouragement of the formation of regional ETD associations and networking communities, as well as providing useful and innovative resources, standards, and technology for the development and support of ETD programs. Proposals are welcome from libraries, graduate schools, disability and student services, offices of diversity, equity and inclusion, information technology professionals, graduate students, and faculty as well as library and information systems / services representatives.

Theme: The conference theme “Tech’s Next Frontier: Transforming Research & Digital Scholarship” will explore technology as it impacts various aspects of the creation and dissemination of scholarly work. We interpret this theme broadly and encourage presentations that bring new light to these important topics. Some areas for possible investigation include:

• Identifying strategies and best practices as we educate stakeholders on new technologies including artificial intelligence applications and adapt our processes
• Access and accessibility considerations including embargoes, open access, ease of access, and discoverability of ETDs in repositories
• Understanding and responding to the changing needs of students, graduate schools and libraries in a quickly evolving landscape
• Advocating for access to the tools and support that students, graduate school and library professionals, and IT personnel need to complete the thesis and digital publishing process.

Presentation proposals should reflect one or more of the following three categories: Research Practices, Streamlining ETD Processing, and the Impact of ETDs. Presenters are encouraged to use the examples under the subtopics as inspiration, but are not limited to these ideas and can expand upon them or generate new ones based on the subtopic themes. Please see the USETDA website for additional conference topic ideas.

I. Research Practices

1. AI and how it will impact research in the future 
   • Best practices to teach students and faculty how to use ChatGPT or other AI applications to formulate queries as the basis of research for literature review
   • Best practices to develop “prompt engineering” techniques for relevant and concise searching
   • Copyright implications for AI-derived content used in ETDs
2. Alternative ETDs
   • Faculty and graduate students' perspectives on what an alternative thesis or dissertation is, what does it look like and what does it do?
     • What are the considerations to keep in mind?
     • Who supports the process? Who approves?
     • How is it preserved and shared?
3. Repositories and ETDs
   • Issues surrounding metadata, privacy and approval processes for "publishing" ETDs in the IR and how the policies benefit students

II. Streamlining ETD Processing

1. Recent developments in AI 
   • ChatGPT or other AI applications to help and next steps to manage ETD workflows
     • Which tasks could be automated (and/or should not be automated) in ETD reviewing practices?
     • Are institutions and higher education administration looking at replacing human review input by AI?
     • What is the impact of AI on the professional role of reviewers?
2. Formatting and accessibility
   • Handling of formatting and accessibility in non-traditional documents, media and LaTeX
   • Addressing change in formatting priorities on campuses
     • How can you foster the adoption of accessibility standards with minimal resistance from students and faculty?
     • Tips to manage faculty objections to your ETD formatting requirements
3. Best practices
   • How various institutions reach the graduate population regarding formatting, milestone completion, and other requirements
   • Practical solutions for people who are in an office of one person
   • ETD signature page options--ink, electronic, both?
   • Guidelines for duplication, plagiarism and copyright detection practices, AI-detection practices, and major pain-points in workflow
   • Supporting the mental health of the student (i.e. dealing with imposter syndrome, procrastination, and perfectionism, improving organizational skills, finding time to relax, meeting deadlines, relationships with faculty and peers)
   • Customer service excellence in the thesis office

III. The Impact of ETDs

1. Technology and its impacts on ETDs
   • Use of AI, ChatGPT and other technologies to support the most efficient access to ETDs
   • Using metadata appropriately make searching easier
2. Quality factor
   • Institutional promotion of high quality ETDs as a goal for ETD staff
     • Should ETD formatting quality be a restrictive criterion for ETD display and what are the pros and cons?
     • Should ETDs be professional in form and function?
     • Should ETD quality be a criterion for posting?
3. Relationships with institutional repositories
   • Best practices for retrospective digitization of print archives of theses and dissertations
   • Best approaches to form links between the thesis office (graduate school/college) and the Libraries (or other stakeholders) and facilitating and maximizing connections between them

The USETDA welcomes the following types of submissions:

Poster sessions - peer reviewed

Posters introduce late-breaking results, work in progress, or research that is best communicated in an interactive or graphical format. Poster presentations are 10 minutes in length. Two types of posters are encouraged:

●       Research posters presenting new and promising work or preliminary results of ongoing projects

●       "Best practices" posters presenting the practical implementations of an organization's practices or innovations

The content of the poster should clearly point out how the research or best practice contributes to innovative thought or design within the field, and how it addresses key challenges, as well as the potential impact on the participant's organization and/or practices in the field.

Joint submissions from students, librarians, graduate school administrators and other professionals demonstrating different perspectives on a single issue are particularly encouraged. Posters are expected to foster discussion in a personal and less formal setting. Poster presenters should submit an abstract of 350 words or less for consideration. Virtual participants must provide a pre-recorded video of their presentation prior to conference time.

Breakout-session presentations and panels - peer reviewed

Single session presentations and panels are 50 minutes long and are invited on topics that focus on the themes of the conference.

For single-session presentations, please submit a proposal of up to 350 words, providing a summary of the presentation topic and the qualifications of the speaker.

Panels must have a cohesive theme and promote lively interaction between panelists and audience members. Please submit a panel proposal up to 350 words, providing an overview of the issues to be discussed by the panel and brief bios of each of the panelists. Proposals should only list panelists who have agreed to participate and shall indicate the qualifications and contribution that each panelist will offer.

Flash Talks

Flash talks present information about best practices, innovative strategies, processes, tools, events, etc. in 5 minutes and may include up to two slides. Flash talks are a great way to share best practices as well as strategies or tools that enhance and support your students and your processes. For example, you may share a new tool or resource that you’ve discovered, discuss a new way of reaching out to students, give a tip that has made your job easier.

For flash talks, please submit a proposal of up to 150 words, providing a summary of the presentation topic and the qualifications of the speaker.

Conference workshops and tutorials - peer reviewed

Conference workshops and tutorials are invited on important topics that focus on the themes of the conference that need to be addressed in-depth. Suggested topics include workshops that are practical in nature and focused on access, accessibility or both; additionally we are seeking an “ETDs for Beginners” primer workshop. Workshops should provide participants with opportunities to engage with study materials, the presenter(s) and workshop participants through discussions in order to broaden and deepen understanding in a particular area. Workshops range in length from 1.5 to 2 hours.

Please submit a proposal of up to 350 words, providing a summary of the workshop topic and the qualifications of the speaker.

Resources

• USETDA Conference Presentation Selection Rubric
• Poster Session Resource Page (download doc)

Proposal Submission

Presentations are invited on themes in line with the call for proposals, including emerging issues, trends and opinions on controversial issues, analyses of tools and techniques, and contrasting viewpoints in complementary professional areas. Although in-person presentations are preferred, we also welcome proposals for virtual presentations as well. Virtual presenters will deliver their presentation live, however, as a backup measure in case of technical difficulties; we will require virtual presenters to submit a pre-recorded video of their presentation prior to conference time. By submitting your documents to this conference, authors agree to creative commons attribution licensing.

For the conference proceedings we welcome papers and/or PowerPoint slide presentations (pdf). For paper submission guidelines we refer you to the ALA Author Guidelines at https://alaeditions.org/resources-for-authors/. We do not impose word or page limits, however, a practical guide for papers would be 10-15 pages in length. We also encourage authors to submit PowerPoint presentation files as a supplement to the paper or just the PowerPoint file if authors are not interested in submitting a detailed paper about their presentation.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact John Hagen at johnhagen@usetda.org.

Once you have prepared your proposal according to the above instructions, please visit https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=usetda2024 to submit it for review.