Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Sciences?

Marisa L. Ramírez is Digital Scholarship Services Librarian in Robert E. Kennedy Library at California Polytechnic State University; e-mail: [email protected]. Gail McMillan is Director, Center for Research and Digital Scholarship Services, at Virginia Tech; e-mail: [email protected]. Joan T. Dalton is Associate Dean of the Library in Leddy Library at the University of Windsor; e-mail: [email protected]. Ann Hanlon is Digital Collections Coordinator in Golda Meir Library at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee; e-mail: [email protected]. Heather S. Smith is Senior Lecturer and Statistical Consultant, Department of Statistics, at California Polytechnic State University; e-mail: [email protected]. Chelsea Kern is Research Assistant, Department of Statistics, at California Polytechnic State University; e-mail: [email protected]. ©2014 Marisa L. Ramírez, Gail McMillan, Joan T. Dalton, Ann Hanlon, Heather S. Smith, and Chelsea Kern, Attribution-NonCommercial (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) CC BY-NC In academia, there is a growing acceptance of sharing the final electronic version of graduate work, such as a thesis or dissertation, in an online university repository. Though previous studies have shown that journal editors are willing to consider manuscripts derived from electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), faculty advisors and graduate students continue to raise concerns that online discoverability of ETDs negatively impact future opportunities to publish those findings. The current study investigated science journal policies on open access ETDs and found that more than half of the science journals responding (51.4%) reported that manuscripts derived from openly accessible ETDs are welcome for submission and an additional 29.1 percent would accept revised ETDs under certain conditions.