Request: Classify thesis creators as author, advisor, tutor and tribunal members

iagogv
edited 27 days ago
The thesis creator may be just one author (or even 2 or 3) and the thesis advisors/tutors, which I would classify currently as contributors, but tutors have a more formal role. But my main request is for tribunal members, which one wouldn't generally say they are contributors
  • mjthoraval
    I am currently using the Contributor field for the thesis supervisors/advisors/directors/tutors/co-...
    The Contributors are not cited when citing with Zotero, which is consistent with most citation styles for thesis supervisors. But they can still be retained when exporting to other citation format (BibTeX, RIS, ...). And you can still find them when doing an Advanced Search using the Creator field.

    For more detailed information such as the jury/committee/tribunal members, I tend to put them in child notes in free format. This means that they can still be found by a simple search "All Fields & Tags" in the Items List. But they are less important, so I do not want to put them as Contributors. And I do not know any citation style that would require that information.
    I also use the child notes to distinguish between the main supervisor and the co-supervisor, or other types of supervisors.

    This is a compromise between quality of metadata for classification and ease of finding it in Zotero, and time needed to manually edit the metadata.
    Most thesis publication platforms do not give the option to export the supervisors, and sometimes do not even show the jury members. So the data must be edited manually most of the time. Adding all the jury members in the metadata, with the wide range of categories would probably be too much work to be worth it: president, chairman, rapporteur, examinateur, external, invited non voting, ...
    For example: https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036558587

    See the discussion here and the linked pages:
    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/66787/add-advisor-field-to-thesis

    You can also check here if the advisor field is added as one of the new item fields coming ("no need to request specific fields at this time"):
    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/121656/coming-soon-new-item-fields
  • damnation
    CSL has a host of "name" variables available: https://docs.citationstyles.org/en/stable/specification.html#name-variables

    You can add them into the extra field and then also use them in a CSL style. E.g.:
    chair: Smith || John

    I'm aware that there is none specific for tutor etc., but you could just use some of the lesser used name variables for your purposes.
  • iagogv
    @mjthoraval @damnation

    Thanks both for your answers.

    I understand Zotero is a reference manager and the main goal of the metadata is to be used for citations, so current fields implemented are those in citation styles/CSL, such as in the link posted by @damnation.

    However, my use of Zotero is more general. And it is not because of it is my use, but I believe Zotero can be a much powerful tool performing as a document manager (see https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/487207/#Comment_487207) allowing to keep all kind of reasonable metadata for documents in a database format.

    So, I do not believe it is relevant if these fields will be used by citation styles. If they may be saved, why not?

    But they are less important, so I do not want to put them as Contributors
    ...
    Most thesis publication platforms do not give the option to export the supervisors, and sometimes do not even show the jury members.
    Obviously, I agree tribunal members should not be saved as contributors. And usually I do not save them. But some translator at some webpage saves them (as authors of a journal article..., see https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/123234/theses-repositories-where-zotero-connector-detects-journal-articles)

    Saving data in chield notes in free format is not as clean/neat/tidy as in database (SQLite) format. (This is the same issue that happens with a plugin such as Zotero-Cita). I mean, for saving and for looking at it. Even if translators can/could save automatically this data to notes...

    This is a compromise between quality of metadata for classification and ease of finding it in Zotero, and time needed to manually edit the metadata.
    ... So the data must be edited manually most of the time
    I believe my suggestion would allow improved quality of metadata, same ease of finding, and does not force anyone to manually edit the metadata. You add the tribunal members if you want, either in a note or as creators with the allowed category (contributors, tribunal members, or whatever).
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