Fudrow, John
Standardizing Chaos: ETD Support service changes before and after a pandemic.
In: USETDA 2020, 23 September 2020 - 23 September 2020, Online.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
The University of Pittsburgh has been requiring ETDs for just over 15 years, but our practices, standards, and templates had become outdated. In 2017 our reformed Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing was tasked with taking the reins of the ETD Support services offered by the library. These services included face-to-face walk-in hours, an ETD support email queue, the dissemination of a revised ETD informational website, instructional workshops, Word and LaTeX template maintenance, helpdesk services with student services support staff for each school, and the administration of the institutional repository for ETD submission and approval. Each aspect of these serviceshad developed breaking points that caused delays in responses, inconsistencies in deliverables, and frustrations for students, staff, and faculty. Our goal was to identify solutions that would be achievable and sustainable to realign the services and allow for future growth.In 2019 we had just completed our first phase of updates that allowed us to provide student-focused instructions on the ETD process, provide updated templates for Word and LaTex users, restructure our workshop materials and frequency, and to advise the approvers from each school on formatting standards and policies for preservation and creation of ETDs. The COVID-19 closures interrupted our Phase 2 planning, but forced us to quickly adapt to a new remote environment. We were able to quickly come together, with our ETD Process group, to obtain approval to use Zoom for workshops and online consultations, use our recently updated ETD Approval form to allow for digital signatures, and to utilize our new ETD site to provide up to date information on procedures, policies, and tutorials. My presentation will focus on how our team used various assessment methods to help inform our decisions and refocus the ETD Support services we provide. I will also cover simply solutions that are user centered and reduce wasted resources. As Repository Librarian and coordinator of ETD Support, I can speak directly about how and why we made our adjustments.
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