Frequently-Asked Questions
- Why should I do an ETD?
- Why PDF files?
- What other electronic formats are allowed?
- Will I need to purchase software?
- What are bookmarks?
- Can I publish my thesis/dissertation in PDF if I have already started writing my work in another word-processing program?
- Will there be any size limits imposed on ETDs?
- Are there any Style or Format requirements (specifications) for my ETD?
- How will doing an ETD affect how I will work with faculty on my thesis or dissertation?
- Who is responsible for processing the electronic submission after dissertation/thesis committee approval?
- How does the ETD Initiative relate to ProQuest/UMI and NDLTD?
- Why should I do an ETD?
Publishing your thesis/dissertation in an electronic format has several benefits:
- You can have your thesis/dissertation published on the Internet, making it quickly and inexpensively available to employers, faculty, students and other interested readers around the world. Statistics from other universities reveal that theses/dissertations published online are accessed many times more than paper ones.
- You can express yourself in a more technologically advanced way. You can include photos, graphs, and drawings in your work without having to worry about print quality, expensive printing costs, or durability.
- You can advance your skills in electronic publishing, the medium of the future.
- You can finish your thesis or dissertation more efficiently by interacting with your professors electronically and saving on copying costs.
TOP
- Why PDF files?
Converting theses/dissertations to PDF files and distributing them in that form has many advantages.
The leading web browsers such as Netscape and Internet Explorer support PDF, and the format and paging stays consistent whether someone views the ETD from Windows, Macintosh, or Unix platforms. Since Acrobat Reader can be downloaded at no cost, publishing your work in PDF will make it possible for people anywhere to read your work for free.
PDF files can also be created easily from most leading word processing software packages such as Word and Word Perfect. The converted PDF work will retain your text, pictures, photographs, and so on.
And finally, PDF files are accepted by UMI, the division of Bell and Howell that publishes dissertations, including all GW dissertations.
TOP
- What other electronic formats are allowed?
The text portion of your thesis or dissertation (and that may be all some theses and dissertations have) should be a PDF document which is exactly like the paper copy of your thesis/dissertation that you will also be submitting.
You can also use any of the document formats below if you have more than text. These formats are already approved by UMI.
Images:
- GIF (.gif).
- JPEG (.jpeg)
- PDF (.pdf) use Type 1 PostScript fonts
- TIFF (.tif)
- Apple Quick Time (.mov)
- Microsoft Audio Video Interleaved (.avi)
- MPEG (.mpg)
- AIF(.aif)
- CD-DA
- CD-ROM/XA
- MIDI (.midi
- MPEG-2
- SND (.snd
- WAV (.wav)
We do not wish to limit you to any particular formats and encourage you to work with software programs you are comfortable with. If you wish to use a format other than the ones above, please email the Gelman ETD Administrator to discuss the issue: etds@gwu.edu
TOP
- Will I need to purchase software?
No, you do not need to purchase additional software. You may choose to buy Adobe Acrobat if you plan to do other web-based publishing in the future, but that would be your choice. The Adobe web site is http://www.adobe.com
Faculty computers at GW come equipped with Adobe Acrobat, which can create PDF files. There are many software programs and online conversion tools available to save your thesis/dissertation documents into PDF files.
TOP
- What are bookmarks ?
Bookmarks are either internal links within a document or from a document to other related files. They enable the reader of an ETD to navigate through the document chapter by chapter and/or allow the reader to jump from the text of the document to other files containing tables, figures, charts, and so on. Bookmarks, while not required for ETDs with no related files, nevertheless make extremely long documents such as dissertations and theses easier to read.
TOP
- Can I publish my thesis/dissertation in PDF if I have already started writing my work in another word-processing program?
Absolutely. That is the normal way to do it because it is easy to convert most word processing documents into PDF files and that will typically be the last step in publishing your ETD. You are best off writing your dissertation in whatever word processing program you are most used to using.
TOP
- Will there be any size limits imposed on ETDs?
The ProQuest/UMI server to which you will be loading the PDF of your thesis or dissertation can only handle PDF files of up 100 Megabytes. If the text of your thesis or dissertation is larger than 100 MB, please contact Proquest/UMI to make arrangements to send your ETD to them via a CD-ROM or other storage device.
TOP
- Are there any Style or Format requirements (specifications) for my ETD?
Yes, certain basic style and format requirements that apply to students in all GW schools have been established. A template available at the ETD web site will make it easy for you to conform to these standards. For example, a 1 ½ inch left margin is required, and the template is set up with the required margin.
However, you must also consult your own school's style and format specifications in case your school requires something additional or special. Schools have written guidelines on the preparation of theses and dissertations that cover style, format, and other topics as well. Be sure you follow them.
TOP
- How will doing an ETD affect how I will work with faculty on my thesis or dissertation?
Whether a thesis or dissertation is submitted on paper or electronically, your faculty advisor and committee are responsible for ensuring the quality of the work and will have particular ways in which they prefer things be done.
Some faculty mentors will be interested in receiving and reviewing drafts electronically and even in providing their comments electronically — for example, using the Tracking Changes feature in Word. Others will want to receive and review paper copies. Similarly, some will want to view your work online when it is completed and others may not wish to do so. If you choose to prepare an ETD, you will want to discuss these issues with your faculty advisor and committee, determine how they wish to operate, and proceed accordingly.
You may want to discuss with them ways in which using an electronic format can facilitate communication among members of the dissertation committee and you as you draft chapters. For example, electronic posting of drafts can allow multiple readers to mark and comment on one copy of the work simultaneously, regardless of where each is located, and to see others' comments. Still, some faculty members do not like to read manuscripts on a computer screen and do not want to have to print out attachments, either, so be prepared for differences among your committee members.
You may also want to discuss in advance what should be available for the defense. Some committees may require that students provide all members of the committee with a paper copy of the ETD before the defense. Others may elect to read the work on screen or to have committee members take individual responsibility for working on screen or working from a paper copy they print out themselves. You may also need to decide how to make any supplements to the text such as audio clips available to committee members before the defense and during it. The key is to consult with your particular faculty advisor and committee members in advance, establish working rules that reflect their preferences, and ensure that everyone will have what they need to judge your work fully and fairly.
TOP
- Who is responsible for processing the electronic submission after dissertation/thesis committee approval?
After your committee signs off on the thesis or dissertation, it is sent to a contact person in your school’s graduate office for processing, just as a paper dissertation is. The school must approve the work before it is officially approved.
You will then submit your ETD at the ETD web site, and you and your advisor will submit the ETD approval form to the ETD Specialist in your school. Among other things, this form will indicate that the paper copy which you presented to your thesis advisor and the final electronic copy have been checked against each other by you and your advisor and that they match exactly.
Once your ETD is submitted to the ETD web site, the ETD Specialist at Gelman Library will check its format (not its content) and contact you immediately if there are any problems that require resubmission. Once it passes the test, the ETD Specialist will assign your ETD to the appropriate contact person in your school, who will determine if all the appropriate paperwork has been approved and - if so - then release the fully approved ETD for the level of access you chose on the approval form (worldwide, campus only, no access). If, like most ETD authors, you choose to make your ETD accessible worldwide, the ETD will then be entered in the GW library system and, if it is a dissertation, picked up by UMI from GW’s ETD Library so that it can join other dissertations in the UMI collection. It will also be made available free of charge through the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD).
TOP
- How does the ETD Initiative relate to ProQuest/UMI and NDLTD?
University Microfilms (later known as UMI) was founded in 1938 to preserve scholarly works. ProQuest Company (then a division of Bell & Howell, now ProQuest Information and Learning) acquired UMI in 1985.
ProQuest Information and Learning now provides access to information from periodicals, newspapers, out-of-print books, dissertations, and scholarly collections in various formats. ProQuest functions as an on-demand book publisher that eliminates the editorial process. Dissertations are sent by universities to ProQuest in either paper or electronic form, are microfilmed to preserve them, and are then made available to purchasers for a price in paper, microfilm, or electronic form. ProQuest has been designated by the Library of Congress as the official repository of dissertations in the United States.
Like other universities, GW has sent all of its dissertations to ProQuest/UMI in the past and will continue to do so now that it has its own ETD archive. We do this because we want the works of GW graduates to be as widely available as possible and to be available decades from now as well. ProQuest is well known as a source of dissertations and it has made a commitment to preserving the dissertations it archives despite changes in technology.
By participating in GW’s ETD initiative and stating that you want your work to have worldwide access, you will also make your work available through the National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD). NDLTD, a collaboration among universities, allows users to search and find not only dissertations but master’s theses in any of the participating institutions’ electronic libraries. The project is dedicated to making students’ works available at no cost, in contrast to ProQuest, and to training graduate students both to publish electronically and to use digital libraries.
We think it is best for GW and GW’s graduates to make their works available through both ProQuest and NDLTD. .
TOP
- Electronic Theses and Dissertations Adminstrator
- Gelman Library
- 2130 H. Street
- Washington, DC 20052
- etds@gwu.edu
