Understanding metadata item records for electronic theses and dissertations in institutional repositories

Institutional repositories of theses and dissertations require a high quality metadata to make its items relevant, discoverable and shareable. There are numerous metadata standards available with predefined metadata tags/fields for describing documents in a digital repository. In our study, the data is collected from the Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR), to observe Institutional Repository software installed by universities, then examine the metadata item record of a thesis and document its distinct attributes. Preliminary study indicates that the countries having a large number of ETD repositories indexed in OpenDOAR have quality metadata. For each item their metadata record provides DOI, Copyright Statement, Degree Date awarded, use of controlled vocabulary and their repository interface maintains Researchers Profile, Altmetrics score alongside students' thesis. Some of the repositories are also having recommendations or findings of theses listed as separate entity. It was observed that in some repositories they mention about the supplemental materials and research data availability and integration, further details of which will be discussed in the paper