ProQuest ETD Workflow Implementation

Owned by Vitaly Zakuta
Last updated: Apr 19, 2023 by Andrew Woods
3 min read

I. Problem/Value Statement

Problem Statement:

Vireo has been implemented in March 2015 as the tool to handle ETD (Electronic Theses and Dissertations) submission at Harvard. As the resources at Office for Scholarly Communications available to support this tool had been scaled back, it became imperative to find a new vended solution for ETD submissions that would not require involved technical support on Harvard's part. After an RFP process, Harvard selected ProQuest as the new vendor for ETD submission tooling for Harvard schools that participate in ETDs.

Business Value:

With ProQuest as the Harvard vendor for the ETD workflow, all technical support and upgrades of the administrative tooling for ETD submission will be performed by the ProQuest technical team. The ProQuest ETD Admin tool will be hosted by ProQuest, thus contributing to better sustainability of the service. Additionally, ProQuest will continuously upgrade and improve the tooling, based on the feedback from Harvard and other participating educational institutions. The ETDs submitted to ProQuest will end up in the ProQuest database and will also be exported to Harvard DASH, HOLLIS and the DRS so that they can be discovered and preserved in Harvard systems as well as in ProQuest. 

II. Vision and Approach

Describe the solution:

The ProQuest ETD implementation working group will oversee the implementation of the ProQuest ETD submission tool for use at Harvard. This work includes liaising with participating schools and stakeholders. As a vendor hosted solution the majority of technical work will be provided by ProQuest. However, additional technical work by LTS will be needed to adjust existing workflows to facilitate content and metadata ingest from ProQuest export into DASH, HOLLIS and DRS. The working group will facilitate implementing the ProQuest ETD Admin tool for submission of theses and dissertations by the 2020 fall semester school deadlines. The group will also oversee implementation of the ingest of submitted theses and dissertations to DASH. The group will oversee two ETD submission cycles and make recommendations for ongoing oversight of the tool after it is disbanded.

Deliverables/Work Products: 

  • Communicate with participating Harvard schools
  • Facilitate the submission of the ProQuest ETD site Request Form with each participating Harvard school
  • Respond to questions from ProQuest and stakeholders in a timely fashion
  • Articulate embargo requirements (including any technology and licensing restrictions from SEAS)
  • Review and finalize specifications
  • QA testing
  • Analysis of metadata for submitted to ProQuest and exported from ProQuest to DASH, HOLLIS and DRS

Define how to measure “done”:

This project is considered "done" when all Harvard schools that participated in ETD submissions through Vireo ETDs@Harvard tool have gone live with the ProQuest ETD Admin tool for the ETD submissions.

In Scope:

  • Retire Vireo for ETDs@Harvard
  • Implement ProQuest ETD Admin for all ETD workflows for Harvard schools that previously participated in Vireo ETD submissions
  • Adjust Harvard Dash auto-ingest workflow to work with ProQuest ETD Admin AIP output
  • Adjust MARCXML generation workflow to work with ProQuest ETD Admin AIP output
  • Adjust DRS ingest workflow to work with ProQuest ETD Admin AIP output
  • Address backlog of ETDs that were submitted to Vireo but not to ProQuest
  • Address backlog of ETDs that were submitted to ProQuest before Vireo implementation in March 2015 but have not been ingested into DASH or DRS

Out of Scope

  • Enhancements to ProQuest ETD Admin tool or LTS DASH / DRS / HOLLIS ingest workflow that were not in the initial requirements and the RFP response

III. Stakeholders and Project Team

Stakeholders

Executive Oversight Committee:

Franziska Frey, Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor for University Library Strategy, Planning and Assessment

Elizabeth Kirk, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources

Ardys Kozbial, Assistant University Librarian for Content Strategies

Megan Sniffin-Marinoff, University Archivist

Suzanne Wones, Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategies and Innovations

Project Team

Vitaly Zakuta, Project Manager (LTS)


ProQuest ETD implementation working group:

Patrick O’Brien(FAS)

Colin Lukens(OSC)

Robin McElheny(HUA)

Amber LaFontaine(HMS)

Miguel Sahagun (FAS)

Cassie Redfield (FAS)


ProQuest ETD implementation metadata subgroup:

Colin Lukens(OSC)

Robin McElheny(HUA)

Skip Kendall (HUA)

Kate Bowers (HUA)

Amber LaFontaine(HMS)

Robin Wendler (LTS)

IV. Schedule

All participating Harvard schools are going live with the ProQuest ETD Admin tool in November 2020 for the November ETD submissions. At the same time, Harvard's instance of Vireo tool will be retired.