18. Open Repository Theseus – A Success Story of 25 Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences

The Theseus poster represents the cooperation model used in building a joint open repository for 25 Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS). The aim is to showcase our cooperation model created for the Theseus Open Repository, its aim, policy user support and further developments. The model is resource saving for universities as students independently upload their work and user support is centralised with common instructions.

Initiative

In 2008 Finland’s Universities of Applied Sciences created an open repository for theses and research publications. A joint project of UASs to build a common repository helped us to tackle both technical and copyright issues. The essential goal of the project was to make a user-friendly one-stop shop for all UAS research. Soon after the introduction of the repository, the objective proved to be a success. At present, Theseus has approximately 80,000 Bachelor’s and Master’s theses uploaded into the repository.

Further developments

Open Access Statement and the start of self-archiving

In January 2010 Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences declared an Open Access statement together. In this statement, the UASs require all teachers and researchers to save a copy of their research essays published in scientific publications, or in a university publication series, in the Open Repository Theseus.

Nevertheless, the self-archiving of research papers has not yet started on a full scale. For the time being, there are about 500 research publications in Theseus and the number is growing very slowly. Although self-archiving is required, there is as yet no pressure or processes being created for this purpose by UAS management.

Streaming service

Most theses are still in traditional written format, converted into PDF files and uploaded with abstract and metadata to create a record. Yet even from the very beginning, there was a growing interest in creating theses or parts of them as a sound sample or video, and the Theseus initiative took on streaming as one the main objectives of the repository. If all goes well, we will be able to launch the streaming service for Theseus in 2015. We will start by offering streaming for audio-visual works which do not contain material under copyright restrictions.