Browsing by Author "Phiri, Lighton"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Assessing and Promoting Metadata Quality for Electronic Theses and Dissertations in Institutional Repositories Using a Policy-Driven Approach
    (INFLIBNET Centre, Gandhinagar, 2023-11-17) Kasonde, Cecilia. C.; Phiri, Lighton
    Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) have become integral to higher education institutions' (HEIs) repositories, facilitating accessibility, sharing, and preservation of research. High-quality metadata is crucial for effective ETD discovery, retrieval, and preservation. The Zambia National ETD portal project seeks to aggregate metadata from HEIs for a nationwide portal. This study examines ETD metadata quality and ingestion processes in HEI repositories, focusing on institutional repository policies. Using mixed methods, the research assesses ETD metadata in Zambian HEIs with functional repositories. Quantitative analysis rates metadata completeness using the ETD-MS standard. Interviews with 16 stakeholders from 8 HEIs identify policy-related influences on metadata quality. Result shows low ETD metadata completeness, averaging 6.43 out of 10. Institutions often diverge from standards like ETD-MS, creating their own or adapting existing ones. Compliance with NDLTD's 14 metadata elements is poor, with optional elements like contributors and coverage often missing. The study highlights metadata's importance, particularly completeness, for IRs. It advocates prioritizing metadata quality through standardized practices, creator training, and quality control mechanisms. Addressing metadata enhances ETD discoverability and utility both nationally and globally.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Towards Metadata Completeness in National ETD Portals for Improved Discoverability
    (INFLIBNET Centre, Gandhinagar, 2023-11-17) Chisale, Adrian; Phiri, Lighton
    Zambia has 61 registered Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) with the Higher Education Authority. In order to facilitate easy access to Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs), works are underway to implement a National ETD portal. The diversity of the ETD source IRs poses a challenge in ensuring that ETD metadata is of high quality, with respect to the completeness, adversely affecting discoverability of ETD digital objects. This paper outlines a study conducted to identify HEIs with functional IRs; empirically assess the relative quality of ETD metadata from HEI IRs and investigate potential ways of identifying sources of missing metadata elements. Questionnaires were distributed to 61 HEIs in order to identify HEIs with functional and interoperable IRs. In addition, ETD metadata from HEIs with functional IRs was harvested using the Open Archives Initiative for Metadata Harvesting protocol and subsequently analyzed in order to assess the metadata completeness. Finally, a combination of document analysis of policy documents and, additionally, content analysis of randomly sampled ETD manuscripts from HEIs with functional IRs was conducted in order to identify potential sources of missing metadata. Out of 61 HEIs, only 10 (16.1%) of HEIs in Zambia had implemented functional IRs. The analysis of ETD metadata indicates that there is generally non-compliance of ETD metadata to the ETD-MS metadata standard, the de facto metadata schema for ETDs developed by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. In order to identify reliable sources of missing metadata elements, content analysis of policy documents was performed, alongside an analysis of randomly sampled ETD bitstreams. Potential sources of missing metadata from the ETD bitstream make it possible for automated extraction techniques to be employed to automatically generate missing metadata elements.