[FC-discuss] Free Thesis Project Released Today

[James Timberlake]

As far as our school (Reed) is concerned, students turn in two drafts  
of their theses to the registrar, one copy goes to archives and one  
copy (possibly) is placed in the thesis tower. This proposal deals  
largely with the red tape through which one must cut if there is to be  
any active change on this campus when dealing with the admin. We  
wanted to make the proposal as legit as possible as to meet all  
library standards (it seemed like HarvardFC was previously having some  
trouble with red tape and such).

As to the public good: how is digitally archiving theses to help  
prevent damage a bad thing? FreeCulture works to promote Open Access,  
how is using a repository hosted on a library server and offering the  
students a free and easy way to net their work not an admirable goal?  
I feel that many of the projects that this organization undertakes  
strive to educate others about existing oppotunities in creative  
expression and providing a way to make that expression easier. We are  
pushing to provide a selection of CC licenses to allow the students to  
decide how "free" they want their work to be. This is just the first  
step in the process, letting the Library, Computer Information  
Services, and the Administration know our goals and how we seek to  
implement them.

Why be so dismissive? You seem to think that college students like  
(assumedly) yourself have nothing to offer. Is promoting open access  
to student's work merely an pointless approbative function?

-Rob


Quoting Matthew Z <matt at mjzhosting.net>:

> I'm not sure I understand the scope of this project. Is it simply to provide
> a medium that would encourage people to exhibit their thesis publicly?
>
> I guess I'm trying to say that I don't understand what this is contesting at
> all. Is it really anything more than systematizing (and centralizing)
> something that people could have simply otherwise done on their own free
> individual initiative? Am I missing something here? Just curious as to what
> beyond a sort of pointless approbative function this would fill.
>
> Matt
>
> On 5/1/07, Elizabeth Stark <emstark at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Very cool. This would be for all theses at your school? Would they be
>> freely available? CC licensed?
>>
>> Are any of you coming to the FC conference? It would be great to talk
>> about it then.
>>
>> On 4/30/07, Max Berger <maxberger85 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Elizabeth,
>>>
>>> We're doing this at Reed currently. We've recently put together a
>>> proposal digitize and net all theses, which can be found on our wiki
>> (http://reed.freeculture.org/wiki/The_Proposal ).
>>> Perhaps we can host some kind of discussion forum/seminar to share ideas
>>> about these types of projects?
>>>
>>> Cool,
>>>
>>> Max
>>>
>>> On 4/27/07, Elizabeth Stark <estark at law.harvard.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> >  Hi all,
>>> >
>>> > We released our Free Thesis Project site at Harvard today
>>> > (http://hcs.harvard.edu/thesis ), a site where we encourage seniors to
>>> > upload their theses and make them available under CC licenses. We also
>>> >
>>> > published a related op-ed on open access in the Harvard Crimson
>>> > (http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=518548 ).
>>> >
>>> > While our site is currently only open to Harvard students, we're
>>> > working on making a version of the software available for other
>>> > schools to easily download and install. It's also OAI-complaint, so
>>> > that other sites can easily index it. We're hoping to release the
>>> > broader project at the National Free Culture Conference at Harvard on
>>> > May 26.
>>> >
>>> > Let us know if you'd be interested in doing this at your own school.
>>> >
>>> > Elizabeth
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Discuss mailing list
>>> > Discuss at freeculture.org
>>> > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>
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