Our project to digitize UM-Flint’s graduate theses and dissertations, in order to preserve and make them more accessible, is nearing its end.
Since our last update, we have digitized the last 270 legacy theses (mostly dating from 1980 – mid 1900s). We are currently reviewing the scans and collecting their metadata before adding them to Deep Blue. We also continue to add new graduates’ theses and dissertations, including the dissertation of Shewta Gore, the first PhD ever awarded at UM-Flint: Subjective Assessments of Physical Activity in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
We have continued to track how many times the theses have been downloaded from Deep Blue, the University of Michigan’s institutional repository. The following information is a break down of some of the statistics.
Deep Blue by the Numbers
- 452 theses have been added to Deep Blue from July 2015 to December 2017.
- 285 of the 452 theses (63%) have been downloaded at least once.
- 26,494 downloads have occurred since July 2015.
- 204 of the 452 theses (45%) are designated as open access.
- 203 of the 204 openly accessible theses (99%) have been downloaded at least once.
- 248 of the 452 theses (55%) are only accessible on UM campuses.
- 82 of the 248 on campus theses (26%) have been downloaded at least once.
- 26,322 of the 26,494 total downloads (99%) were for the openly accessible theses.
- 172 of the 26,494 total downloads (1%) were for the theses only accessible on UM campuses.
Deep Blue in 2017


Comparing 2016 to 2017
2016 | 2017 | |
Theses Digitized | 388 | 452 |
On Campus Only Theses | 265 | 248 |
Open Access Theses | 123 | 204 |
Downloads | 3,227 | 23,267 |
On Campus Downloads | 91 | 88 |
Open Access Downloads | 3,136 | 23,179 |

Top 10 Downloaded Theses (as of December 2017)
Going Forward
In the coming months we are adding the last batch of legacy theses to Deep Blue.
If you have any questions about this project, please contact Liz Svoboda at esvoboda@umflint.edu.
Related Posts
Graduate Theses Digitization Update #3 – 17 July 2017