I’m looking forward to keynoting this conference on September 23. If your institution has an interest in ETDs (electronic theses and dissertations), this virtual conference will provide lots of good information.

The USETDA announces our 10th annual conference—USETDA 2020—Making Connections: Scholarly Communication in the Digital Age. In an effort to provide a safe meeting environment as well as to preserve the work and funding already put into this year’s conference, we sought new opportunities for outreach and engagement. As a result, this year we are pleased to announce that the USETDA 2020 Conference will be held as a free online Virtual Town Hall Meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, September 23, 2020 from 1:00 – 6:30 pm (Eastern). Please visit our USETDA 2020 Conference Update – COVID-19 Statement for complete information about this transition. Registration will close on September 22nd. Don't miss out, register today!

USETDA Conferences are an excellent educational opportunity for ETD professionals from graduate schools, libraries, academic computing and others who work with electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). The conference theme “Making Connections – Scholarly Communication in the Digital Age” will focus on the impact and implications of connecting scholars and research from across the country and around the world. We will examine the present use and availability of ETDs and related initiatives while also exploring new and emerging ETD practices, needs, and influences impacting administrative, graduate school and library professionals.

This year’s program includes keynote speaker Joan Lippincott, Associate Executive Director Emerita at the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI).

Joan K. Lippincott is Associate Executive Director Emerita of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), a joint program of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and EDUCAUSE, based in Washington, DC. At CNI, Joan provided leadership for programs in teaching and learning, learning spaces, digital scholarship, ETDs, and assessment. She served on the boards of the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), the New Media Consortium (NMC) and on the advisory boards for the Horizon Report for both higher education and libraries. Joan was the editor of the EDUCAUSE Review E-Content column, chair of the Association of College & Research Libraries’ (ACRL) New Publications Board, and served as a member of the ACRL task force that produced the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. In addition to serving on the Advisory Boards of the Learning Spaces Collaboratory and the Learning Space Toolkit project, Joan has served as a consultant to many academic libraries for their space renovation projects and has been on the planning committee for the Designing Libraries for the 21st Century conference since its inception.

In her keynote talk “Making Connections: ETDs, Academe, and the World of Work“, Lippincott will focus on four areas in which we can provide graduate students with important 21st century skills: ability to employ digital tools and data management practices most utilized in their field of study; ability to make choices within the scholarly communications and intellectual property systems; ability to understand reputation management; and ability to communicate research findings to the public. Her presentation will also suggest how professionals who work with ETDs can accelerate change and offer practical suggestions for how institutions can provide better support in these areas for graduate students.

Program Highlights

The full program includes a keynote presentation, two plenary roundtable panel discussions, three 20-minute brief breakout presentations, two live poster presentations and nine 40-minute breakout presentations including user group meetings as well as a variety of networking opportunities. Select presentations will be delivered “live” via Zoom during the virtual conference. You will be able to view all of the presentations in the Conference Proceedings. You can view the full program in our USETDA 2020 Conference-at-a-glance.

Networking Opportunities

You will have the opportunity to participate in a number of structured as well as informal networking opportunities to discuss a variety of ETD topics with colleagues and special interest groups including live presentations delivered via Zoom with virtual audience participation and discussion options, user’s group meetings and breakout sessions throughout the conference. Zoom sessions will be recorded and archived.

Registration

Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to learn more and share your experiences with colleagues at USETDA 2020! The conference is free to all, but you must register for access. To register visit our registration information Web page.

We hope to see you online at USETDA 2020.

Kind Regards,
USETDA Conference Organizing Committee

United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association (USETDA)

564 Brysen Ave.

Toledo, OH 43609

Phone: (304) 290-2516

www.usetda.org/