Aims

The aim of the ADT program is to establish a distributed database of digital versions of theses produced by the postgraduate research students at Australian universities. The theses will be available worldwide via the web. The ideal behind the program is to provide access to, and promote Australian research to the international community.

The initial project was funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) - Research Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities (RIEF) Scheme grant (1997/1998).

The ADT concept was an initiative of 7 Australian universities (listed below) in association with the Council of Australian University Librarians ( CAUL ).

The ADT model was developed by the 7 original project partners during 1998-1999. The program was then opened up to all CAUL members (all Australian universities) in July 2000. The original 7 patners will continue to guide and advise the national group in their role as the ADT Steering Committee.

The original ADT membership group:

• University of New South Wales (lead institution)
• University of Melbourne
• University of Queensland
• University of Sydney
• Australian National University
• Curtin University of Technology
• Griffith University
  

ADT Program Overview

The ADT program is designed to improve access to, and enhance transfer of, the research information contained in theses by providing a full text version available from the desktop via the web. The retrieval is enhanced by the inclusion of metadata tags in the documents which are given a higher weighting by the more sophisticated search engines.
It is also designed to provide a new model for deposit and archiving of theses that takes into account the tools and technologies that students are now using to prepare their theses.

The program has two major components, digitisation of theses as part of the deposit process and the digitisation of a selected number of frequently requested existing theses. As each University is responsible for maintaining an archival copy of the theses of their own institution, each participant in the program will mount their own theses on a server located in their respective institution. The participants will use the same database configuration, standards and metadata system to ensure compatibility. The document format will be Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) ensuring that the data is independent of the platform on which it is created. Adobe PDF ensures that a high quality printed version can be provided if needed. Acrobat is relatively easy to use, with a high quality free reader readily available. PDF has also become an electronic publishing standard.