File Formats

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INTRODUCTION

Beginning Fall semester 2006, doctoral students will be required to submit their dissertations in electronic format to the K-State Research Exchange (KREx). A similar requirement for masters students' theses and reports will go into effect Fall semester 2007.

Universities have a long history of preserving and providing access to theses, dissertations, and reports submitted in paper format. It is our intention to ensure ETDRs are preserved and made accessible in similar fashion. To this end, K-State adopts the following policies in support of electronic theses, dissertations, and reports (ETDRs):

• ETDR files will be preserved and accessible in the future.
• The university will provide the ability to search and retrieve ETDRs.

ETDRs AND THE K-STATE RESEARCH EXCHANGE (KREx)

Preservation of and access to ETDRs is provided through the K-State Research Exchange (www.ksu.edu/krex). The K-State Research Exchange (KREx) uses open source software known as DSpace to capture, store, index, preserve, and distribute ETDRs. Developed by Hewlett-Packard and MIT and supported by an active user community, DSpace is in use at hundreds of institutions worldwide.

K-State graduate students use KREx to submit their ETDRs and to select keywords and other data to facilitate access to their work. The Graduate School and the Library use administrative functions within DSpace to review ETDRs submitted by students and to ensure accurate descriptive data are maintained. Users interested in finding and reading K-State ETDRs can visit KREx to search by keyword (subject, department, major professor, etc.) or browse by title, author, or date.

ETDRs stored in KREx will be preserved as is, using a combination of techniques for data management and best practices for digital preservation. As for specific formats, however, the proprietary nature of many file types makes it impossible to guarantee that all files will be able to be opened and used far into the future. Therefore, the university's policy for file support is as follows:

• All files submitted to KREx will be retrievable
• We will fully support the Adobe Portable Document Format

FORMAT SUPPORT LEVELS

Three levels of support are defined for ETDRs within KREx:

• Supported: The format will be useable in the future, using whatever combination of techniques (such as migration, emulation, etc.) is appropriate given the context of need.
• Known: The format is recognized, but we cannot guarantee support over time.
• Unsupported: The format is not recognized, but a file in this format can still be deposited into and retrieved from K-REx.

K-State will provide support at the "Supported" level for ETDRs submitted in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). Graduate students are required to submit the text of their ETDR as a PDF file. For the majority of ETDRs, the primary intellectual content of the student's work is contained within the text of the manuscript. By agreeing to "support" files in this format, we can ensure the essence of students' work will be accessible in to the future.

Given the experimental nature of ETDRs and the fact that we want to encourage students to explore new methods of communication, some ETDRs may contain supplemental files, such as data sets, audio, video, tutorials, etc. While the university will not be able to provide support at the "Supported" level for all such files, we will be able to ensure that files of any format can be deposited into and retrieved from DSpace.

DSpace is able to deliver the file to the end-user, but the end-user must have the appropriate software on their computer in order to open and use the file. If a particular file format is not widely supported in the future, it is possible a user will not be able to open a file.

Such a situation may be equivalent to paper theses and dissertations submitted with supplemental materials such as audio tape or 35mm slides. The nature of these media is such that, over time, they can become unusable or significantly altered from their original state. Despite the deterioration of these materials, the paper copy of a thesis or dissertation (and the microfilm copy maintained by ProQuest/UMI) remains usable far into the future. By supporting the PDF format at the "Support" level, the university can ensure the primary intellectual content of the ETDR will remain accessible, even though supplemental files may become unusable.

Some music and art students are required to submit recital recordings or an exhibit of their work. The university will pay particular attention to formats used for these audio and image files and make effort to support them at the "Supported" level.

While the university cannot guarantee support for all file formats, there is a greater chance for some formats to be useable far into the future. These formats are those that are platform- and vendor-independent, stable, and widely supported.

New file formats will be introduced, and files of any format will always be able to be submitted to and retrieved from KREx.

If a student submits a file in a format we cannot identify, KREx will record it as "unknown" and "application/octet-stream." There are always more formats to consider, and we would appreciate your help in identifying and studying the suitability of support for additional formats. If you have suggestions for new file formats, please contact Marty Courtois, Information Technology Assistance Center, (785) 532-4428, courtois@ksu.edu