Abstract:

Collections of Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) have become an integrated part of institutional repositories (IRs). Meanwhile, various types of software packages that have been introduced to manage IRs, has made it a time consuming process for institutions to select appropriate solutions. Furthermore, ETD collections have a number of unique characteristics that must be considered in this process. The purpose of this study is to evaluate three broadly used open source software packages (DSpace, EPrints, and Fedora) from the perspective of ETD repositories. In this evaluation, 62 features of these applications have been evaluated. The test results combined with results of related studies with an emphasis on implementation of ETD. This comparison demonstrated that although all these packages are capable of handle ETDs, DSpace could be the best nominate to be ETD management software.