Hometown ETDs Make it to the Big Time: The Collective Power of Collaboration and Consortiums to Connect

Though their structures are very different, OhioLink and the Vireo Users Group both serve diverse constituencies and aim to provide ETD workflow solutions that serve a wide range of institutions, both successfully bringing thousands of ETDs online via publication to institutional repositories each year.  While OhioLink enjoys the support of state government and an existing consortial environment, the Vireo Users Group is a national informal entity centered around an Open Source Project based out of Texas. In this panel, we will discuss the forces that led to the creation of our respective workflow tools, how we maintain the community around our software, manage and update the systems, the challenges we face and how we hope to continue moving forward.