DL Project Suggestion: ETD and XML

• Number of people: 2
• Goal: To develop a mechanism for ETDs to be developed using XML and to document it for students to apply. To relate this to old instructions for LaTeX and SGML.
• Contact information: Dr. John Eaton (Graduate School), Gail McMillan (Library), Marcos Andre Goncalves (mgoncalv@vt.edu), and the instructor, all at Virginia Tech
• Required background: interest in ETDs and familiarity with XML
• Description: In order to facilitate preservation, and to aid searching and reuse, there have been several efforts to apply LaTeX, SGML or XML to the authoring of ETDs. This project involves reviewing these and developing and testing instructions so that students at Virginia Tech can create ETDs using XML. See coverage on related work at
  • Virginia Tech and NDLTD especially ETD-ML
  • Humboldt-University at Berlin, Germany
  • University of Montreal, Canada
  • XML.COM
  • XML School
  • Arbortext info on XML
  Students should begin by reviewing the current instructions for LaTeX for accuracy and currency, and doing likewise with regard to ETD-ML.

  Note that UNESCO is funding production of a Guide for ETDs, to include such information, so this effort will complement that work and allow students involved to be in touch with international teams with like interest.

• Students involved: The following students are working on this project:
  • Akshay Sivananda, asivanan@csgrad.cs.vt.edu
  • Sunil Gopinath, sunil@cs.vt.edu
  • Sumedh Sawant, ssawant@vt.edu

  In addition, there is a student working on this for indepedent study: Dilshad Akhter, dakhter@vt.edu