This Guide provides information and resources about institutional repositories and Wits Institutional Repository on DSpace (WIREDSPACE). It provides guidelines on depositing in and accessing material from WIREDSPACE, as well as OA and OER Resources.
Wits Theses and Dissertations are deposited in full-text onto WIReDSpace and are accessible around the world.
The General Rules of the University requires every post-graduate student to submit two final, corrected copies of the dissertation or research report or thesis in a printed format as well as a final, corrected copy in electronic format.
The intellectual property in Theses and Dissertations belongs to Wits, so in the event of students wanting to publish their theses/dissertations or being approached by publishers to publish their theses/dissertations, students would need to obtain permission from Wits Legal Office or the Research Office. For information on how to deposit in WIReDSpace, please speak to your Faculty Librarian.
Advantages of Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD)
The availability of Wits theses and dissertations electronically will undoubtedly lead to increased visibility of the institution internationally.
The advantages and attraction of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) include the following:
By creating ETDs students can use more innovative approaches, as well as print on paper, including audio, video, hypertext, multimedia and hypermedia.
Access to graduate research information is enhanced by making it available to researchers on the Internet (ETDs are accessed ten to a hundred times more than the paper copy).
Collaboration between research programmes can be promoted at separate universities by making research work visible and accessible via a network archive.
The costs of submitting and handling theses and dissertations will be reduced.
The theses and dissertations will be available 24 hours a day and are never checked out of the library.
Library support for ETD
For queries regarding content of ETD collection please contact Tshidi Letswalo by email : Tshidi Letswaloor Tel : 011 717 1922
