ArticleActa medica academica2024
Difficulties in Accessing the List and Full Text of the Defended PhD Theses from Medical Schools: a Retrospective Case Study from Croatia.
Article in Acta medica academica, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- PhD Theses Defended in Croatia (1992-2023): A Retrospective Analysis of Trends, Institutional Contributions, and Data Collection Challenges.Acta medica academica · 2025Article
- An analysis of periodontology theses in Türkiye: Ph.D. vs. specialization program.BMC medical education · 2025Article
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8 authors.
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Abstract
objectiveTo conduct scientometric studies on PhD ("Doctor of Philosophy") theses (i.e., doctoral theses), researchers should be able to access the theses. We aimed to explore how to obtain a list and full text of the defended PhD theses from medical schools in Croatia over 30 years (from the beginning of 1992 to the end of 2021).
methodsWe tried to obtain information from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, the National and University Library in Zagreb (NSK), universities, medical schools and online repositories.
resultsWe could not find a single list (source) of all PhD theses. Based on 4 different sources (website of the University of Zagreb and Medical School in Rijeka; school administrator from Split; library catalog from Osijek), we gathered information that from the beginning of 1992 to the end of 2021, there were 2955 PhD theses defended at medical schools in Croatia - 357 in Osijek, 550 in Rijeka, 337 in Split and 1711 in Zagreb. In May 2022, the online Croatian Digital Dissertations Repository contained 631 (22%) of full-text theses in Portable Document Format (PDF). University of Zagreb School of Medicine has its own repository that holds the full text of 834 (49%) of their PhD theses. One of the three PhD programs of the University of Split School of Medicine, namely Translational Research in Biomedicine (TRIBE), published full texts of all PhD theses defended at that program on its website. NSK held 2650 (90%) of the theses in a printed version.
conclusionIt was extremely challenging to access the list and full texts of doctoral theses defended in Croatia. Making PhD theses publicly available would ensure transparency and enable analyses that should improve scientific policy.
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