Mon 23 May 2005
Theses Update
Posted by David Dudley Field '25 under Theses at 11:49 am
College Librarian Dave Pilachowski was kind enough to send in this update on senior theses.
1) The theses are coming in fast and furious now, with over 40 received on Friday. Most of the remaining theses should arrive on Monday. Processing then includes cataloging, scanning (unless we have an original copy in Word), and binding the hard copy version.
2) Besides Economics, it is likely that some other departments are likely to restrict access to certain theses since some of the work is part of larger faculty research projects. We will find out the details after we receive all theses.
3) I will be in touch with you or post directly to the blog, if that is something that I can do, when we are able to provide access to the 2005 theses once they become available.
Thanks to Pilachowski for taking the time to update us on this topic. I am deeply suspicious of the claim that any sort of on-going faculty research would preclude the posting of a senior’s thesis, but this is not Pilachowski’s call to make, obviously. As long as the theses that I care about — mostly those having to do with Williams — are posted, I won’t complain too loudly.
But we should remember that a senior thesis is special because it has (or should have) made a contribution to human knowledge. That contribution is lessoned when access to the work is restricted. Now, it is possible to imagine scenarios under which such a restriction makes sense, but they would be few and far between in the context of Williams. If the thesis is done, it should be public.
Print
• Email
| « Mud Hut | Drezner ’90 Meet Zuckerman ’93 » |
18 Responses to “Theses Update”
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post
If a comment you submitted does not show up, please email us at eph at ephblog dot com. Please note that commenters are required to use a valid email address when submitting comments.
Geoffrey Hutchison '99 says:
Unfortunately, some disciplines (chemistry, for example) consider that any sort of web disclosure as “prior publication” which would prevent faculty (and students) from publishing peer-reviewed articles.
So for example, if my advisor intends on submitting a manuscript to a chemistry journal and my thesis comes out first, then the journal *could* claim that the work was already published on the web and reject it.
I can’t speak for other disciplines, but that’s how the system works. I agree with you that the contribution is lessened when access to works is restricted. But I think that’s an entirely different debate. Look up “open access” in Google and you can see the flames fly.
May 23rd, 2005 at 2:04 pmDavid says:
I don’t know enough about the standards in chemistry to argue this but:
1) Can you cite a specific situation when this has occurred, i.e., when a professor has had trouble publishing a paper because a student’s thesis covered some of the same ground and was public? (Of course, there may be no such examples because everyone in chemistry at least follows the rules.)
2) Can you cite the webpage of a chemistry journal in which this policy is spelled out? I have heard of prior publication constraints but not of constraints that only apply to the web. That is, a student thesis is “public” and therefoe “published” as soon as it goes to the College library. Where is the journal that thinks that this is OK but putting exactly the same thing on the web is not?
3) This is radically different than most other fields. Almost every published paper in economics begins life as a public “working paper” of some sort. I also *think* that most work in physics is available in a similar way. So, I guess that I am ready to understand why the College needs to do something for chemistry, but just about every other thesis should be public.
May 23rd, 2005 at 2:12 pmrory says:
Before sounding like you doubt your fellow ephs’ veracity, mayhaps you should do a simple google search. Here’s the policy of the Journal of the american chemical society:
May 23rd, 2005 at 7:20 pmhttp://pubs.acs.org/journals/jacsat/policy.html.
David says:
Rory,
I do not doubt Hutchinson’s veracity nor do I sound like I do. Thanks for the citation. It supports my point:
Read literally, this would suggest that no work presented in a student thesis at Williams, which is certainly “published” the moment that it is submitted to the library, can be incorporated in this journal. Making the thesis available on the web is a secondary issue.
But, of course, that is not what it really means. Guidelines like this are meant to prevent authors from submitting the same work to two or more places. The JACS does not care of the work has appeared in a Williams thesis (as long as due credit is given), nor does it care of that thesis is only in the library or is available on the web.
Think about it. If you were the editor of the JACS, why would you care?
May 23rd, 2005 at 8:25 pmGuy Creese '75 says:
Before forging down the chemistry subject rathole, do we really care? I thought David’s original pitch was it would be nice to have Williams-centric theses online. I agree with that point.
My Senior Honors Thesis was entitled, “The Concept of the Gentleman at Williams College: 1929-1939.” Not as good a job as I’d do now, but it contained some interesting tidbits: according to the Williams Record, in 1930 52% of Williams students had family incomes of over $50,000 a year; in a 1938 survey, it turned out that almost 80% of student families had servants (average of 1.5) and 55% of them owned two or more cars and 15% owned three or more.
Although it achieved some minor fame — it was required reading in a Williams College History class that Prof. Rudolph later taught — I think people other than students would find it interesting. Given that Williams-centric theses are a small percentage of the output, that is at least a doable project and one of interest to Ephblog readers.
So rather than whipping ourselves into a froth about ACS guidelines, academic freedom, why we can’t read a physics thesis the instant it’s published, etc., how about politely asking if theses about Williams College could be put online? (I know, I know, it’s not as controversial and doesn’t keep Ephblog churning — but it might actually get done.)
May 23rd, 2005 at 10:10 pmMike E says:
In response to Guy’s query about online thesis publishing: Dave Pilachowski and others at the library are very keen on making this a reality someday. All thesis writers now and in the past few years have been asked if they will grant virtual access to their thesis material if the necessary technology is ever put to use by the college — there will certainly be a lot to publish, I think.
The library is very concerned about the growing trend in the library world towards virtual access, and is constantly monitoring the line between what is feasibly worth making virtual and what is still better to keep hard-copy. The years I served on the library committee (2003-2004; 2004-2005) we saw this debate being hashed out at a dozen other colleges of similar size and scope to Williams. In comparison, Williams has been in the vanguard of making more safe transfers of publications to virtual.
I think the issue comes down to concensus among faculty about a suitable standard (with the sciences holding the most important veto, probably) and method, and then seed money for a pilot project. On this matter, it is probably better for alums to pressure and query science committees/faculty, as well as the president’s office, perhaps.
Dave is an awesome guy, who makes all things library a bit more exciting and interesting. He was a mean hockey player in his day too.
May 23rd, 2005 at 10:35 pmJonathan Landsman says:
C’mon, David. Of course theses ought to be contributions to public knowledge, but isn’t it a little overly simplistic to view a delay on publishing to the library as exclusive to a contribution to knowledge?
Whether or not Chem journals have the debated policy, a prof’s desire to have the thesis stay hidden for a while is reasonable, and quite within the ways of a capitalist system of progress that I think you support. Surely you don’t want all discoveries to become public knowledge before the finished product they support is ready? However unlikely it is that someone might get information from their partial work that (or the reflection of it that an advised student thesis is) a professor with a half-done lifelong project is not going to want to jeapordize it. And I don’t want him to have to make the choice between the safety of his own work, and helping a student do a thesis. So long as the thesis is released once the longer project is done or abandoned, this is fine. Most, if not all, students doing a thesis would be quite happy with this arrangement, I think.
Theses are special, but not because they have made a contribution to human knowledge. Or, at least, that fact may make them “special” but not unique. They are like many other human endeavors that intend to improve public knowledge or well-being, and which arise from the ambition and commitment of a few people who want to have full control over its exposure to the world. Is this a reasonable sentiment in those other cases (invention, novel-writing, journalism, etc.) and not in thesis-writing?
May 24th, 2005 at 10:22 amGeoffrey Hutchison '99 says:
David,
I raised the example of chemistry (and the ACS publication policy) as an example of why a faculty member or student may not wish to have a thesis made public online. There are undoubtedly many other possible examples. I am obviously more familiar with my discipline.
As far as chemistry… the online publication of chemistry articles has been a hotly debated issue. The ACS policy has been used in the recent past to shut down “preprint” sites — I seem to remember one was ChemWeb or somesuch name. Papers submitted to the site were systematically denied access to ACS journals. I also know an author who published open source code on the web for a chemistry program and was denied publication of the research due to “prior publication.”
Physics, biology and other sciences have working preprint systems, but this has been repeatedly killed in chemistry.
The “open access” debate in chemistry is heated to the point that the editorial staff of the ACS felt it necessary to write a rather vitriolic comment in a recent Chemical and Engineering News. Suffice to say that the editors of JACS do, in fact, seem to care about whether works are available in a students thesis available only in a library, or available for public online access.
Besides journal articles, Williams is also not immune from intellectual property issues. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc. tend toward a practical separation between “private publication” (i.e., in the college library) and widespread public publication. Of course, I am not a lawyer.
In short, you may think all theses should be made publicly available online immediately. But echoing similar comments here, just because we wish it doesn’t make it so.
May 24th, 2005 at 11:58 amDavid says:
I contacted Professor George Schatz, editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (the journal cited by Rory above). He kindly gave me permission to paraphrase his comments.
Short version: There is not a problem. Chemistry students at Williams can write theses. They can turns them into the library. The library can put them on the web. Why would the JACS care?
Longer version: Of course, the JACS would assume that any submitted article reflects the work of all its authors, so work submitted by a Williams professor and student would, one presumes, be significantly different from the student’s thesis alone. One would expect different (more sophisticated) tables, figures, writing and analysis.
My proposal: By default, every student’s thesis should be placed on the web just as, today, every student’s thesis must be deposited in the library, available to all. There should be a petition mechanism by which a student might request that his thesis not be placed in the library and/or not be put on the web for X years. Such petitions would go to the CEP, or some similar Williams committee. I would expect that almost all such petitions would get approved. After X years, those thesis would be made public.
[Side note: I would also change the thesis requirments so that, besides handing in a copy binded in such-and-such a fashion using paper of a certain quality, students would be required to submit an electronic version.]
So, if a particular Chemistry professor was very concerned that the web-publication (or library deposit, for that matter) of his student’s thesis would make later publication in JACS or wherever difficult, there would be a mechanism to allay that fear, even if the fear isn’t particularly reasonable.
All that I am calling for is publication by default. Openness is the sine qua non of being a serious scholarly community.
May 24th, 2005 at 1:47 pmrory says:
wow…didn’t expect you to actually contact a guy based on a google search, but so be it.
anyway, i’ll leave the intricate ins and outs to others, i’ll only ask: if a student doesn’t want a thesis published, why should they need approval for that from some committee? What happens when the committee says, “nope, it’s getting published. we like it too much”?
I like the idea of published theses. The one academic regret I have from William is that I couldn’t convince myself to mix both my three tutorials and a thesis in together senior year. Going into grad school, it’d be really nice to have a piece of work like that to fall back on in terms of academic confidence. But I wouldn’t sacrifice the tutorial experience for the world.
May 24th, 2005 at 2:35 pmGeoffrey Hutchison '99 says:
Sorry David, I know George — I was his head TA for two semesters. He’s the editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry, not JACS. And while I know George probably wouldn’t have an issue, I know that other chemistry editors DO have problems with this. (No, I’m not naming names — this is hardly the appropriate forum for such a discussion.)
I’m sorry that you believe as an outsider to a particular discipline that these fears “aren’t particularly reasonable.” I don’t think you really qualify as an expert opinion. I reiterate for emphasis — some journals have blocked print publication of articles that had appeared in full or in part in an online form.
You can call for online publication by default. Heck, I happen to agree with you that open web access to undergraduate theses is a good thing. But I gave you at least one concrete example of a case where such access may need to be delayed for various reasons. I could also pick other examples if I wanted — patents, for example.
I’m going to echo rory’s comments. Whether you, David, believe this should be the default or not, is not for you to decide. I happen to personally believe that open access should be granted by the author more often than not. (And I believe I could easily get permission from Prof. Lee Park, my thesis advisor, to publish my 1999 senior thesis, for what it’s worth.)
It’s one thing for the college and/or library to suggest that students allow for online publication of their work. It’s yet another thing to overrule the authors (and thus copyright holders) and publish it anyway. The default should be to publish online when the authors say so. As it happens, that seems to be the college’s current policy.
May 24th, 2005 at 3:08 pmDavid says:
Apologies for misstating Schatz’s editorial position. You are, of course, correct. Professor Schatz’s comments to me were with regard to any ACS Journal, I believe.
In any event, if Professor Schatz tells us that this — a chemistry student allowing the Williams library to put her thesis on-line — is not something to worry about with regard to future publication efforts, then I tend to believe him.
But, as long as students can petition (and those petitions are routinely granted), then I don’t see a problem.
Then who decides? The thesis adviser? The student? The trustees? Morty? As with all policies at Williams, there is a sense in which all those connected to Williams are welcome to voice their opinions. Now, obviously, I don’t get to make policy. But I do get to offer my opinion on what policy should be.
Patents, trademarks and other issues of intellectual property play almost no real part in this discussion and, moreover, could be dealt with via petition.
As I understand it, the College policy right now is that you must submit your thesis to the library. No submission means no honors. It is a requirement. Now, the College could have a different policy. It could make this optional. Perhaps some students would rather that their thesis stay private, unavailable to the world at large. If you think that the College should change this policy, then please argue that.
But, I think that the policy is a good one because theses are special. The claim with a thesis is that you are saying something worthwhile that others would benefit from knowing. It is therefore a scholarly obligation to make the work public by, for now, giving a copy to the library. I merely propose that this obligation be extended from the library to the web. The principal is the same and the element of compulsion is no greater.
May 24th, 2005 at 3:38 pmBen Roth '04 says:
I believe that, though you are required to submit a copy of your thesis to the library, you can keep it from being read. They are kept in the archives library (where I worked for a summer), in closed stacks. Each thesis is bound with a page at the front that the author fills out, detailing how long he or she wishes to retain control of the copyright, who may photocopy it, and who may look at it at all. One of the options, as I remember it, was to allow no one to read it. The only time that you can browse through them, I think, is when each year’s are put out on tables by subject on the first floor of Sawyer. Otherwise, you have to request one specifically from the archives people, and, unsurprisingly, almost no one ever does. I don’t know if one would be displayed for even that brief time at the end of the year if the author requested limited access.
May 24th, 2005 at 3:51 pmBen Roth '04 says:
I just found the form online. It’s hyperlinked under “release” here.
I wasn’t quite right. The most you can do is limit access to that one hardcopy in the archives and not allow anyone to ever photocopy it.
May 24th, 2005 at 4:02 pmGuy Creese '75 says:
For those wondering what Williams-related scholarly publications are already available online, check out Google Scholar.
May 24th, 2005 at 5:50 pmDavid Ramos '00 says:
What, exactly, is the College’s intellectual-property policy? Who holds copyright on theses?
May 24th, 2005 at 6:08 pmWhitney Wilson ' 90 says:
The copyright would in almost every instance be owned by the author (student), unless there were a written agreement stating otherwise. If there were patentable subject matter in the thesis (for example an improved synthesis of a chemical compound, or a new compound), the rights to that would be owned by the inventor(s), one of whom would (should?) by the thesis author. Again, there could be a pre-existing written agreement or policy that such intellectual property (which is created using college resources), is owned by the College. I don’t know whether Williams has such a policy. A very quick search on the
May 24th, 2005 at 10:34 pmWilliams web site didn’t reveal one.
Ananda Burra '07 says:
I recently researched a thesis by a Williams student (Sara Schwanke ’03) for a final research paper in History. The archive librarians definately seemed extremely serious about limiting access to the thesis. I had to go the archives office and request the thesis. After a couple of quick questions, the archive librarian went into the stacks (I didnt accompany her) and got it for me. I was not allowed to take it out of the office and when I asked her if I could scan the document, the librarian checked the first page to make sure the author had approved that. She also wanted to know what I would be using the scanned pages for. There were three option available for the author as far as I remeber – Open access (with provision that only small excerpts would be qouted and any larger pieces would require authorial consent), No replication for X no. of years and no replication whatsoever. From what it looks like, the system really does work quite well and the college takes student requests on this matter seriously.
May 25th, 2005 at 5:51 pm