Electronic Theses and Dissertations

About the Electronic Theses and Dissertations process

By a vote of the Graduate Council in December 2004, all students graduating in December 2005 and later must submit their theses or dissertations electronically through University Microfilms International (UMI). Students submit a paper signature form to the Office of Graduate Studies, but paper copies of the actual thesis or dissertation are no longer required or accepted.* Theses and dissertations submitted electronically must be converted to Adobe PDF before submission. Supplementary material can be added in other formats. University support staff are available to assist graduate students with the submission process and workshops are conducted once a semester.

The electronic submission process begins once the thesis/dissertation is complete, successfully defended, and accepted by the thesis/dissertation committee.**

The submission process is straighforward. Students open a web browser to http://dissertations.umi.com/students.html. Once logged in, students will select KU from the list of universities, then select their degree or program from the drop-down menu. From there, students will attach an electronic copy of their thesis or dissertation (along with any necessary supplementary files) and upload to the UMI server.

Graduate division representatives will have usernames and passwords to enable them to retrieve the files from the UMI server. Representatives have access to the entire work to check for content and format. Once approved, the thesis/dissertation will be released to UMI and stored permanently on their servers.

Finally, negotiations between KU and UMI/ProQuest will ensure that no thesis or dissertation electronically submitted will be any less accessible than it would be if it were submitted in print.

*If bound copies of theses or dissertations are requested by students’ advisers, or departments, or are desired for personal reasons, recommendations about commercial binding services is available at http://www.graduate.ku.edu/~etd/binding/.

**A complete thesis or dissertation, by definition, is one that meets the requirements of the student’s committee, the graduate division in which the student’s department or program is located, and the Office of Graduate Studies.