Finishing and Submitting

What is in this section?

Due dates and requirements come quickly at the end of your ETD process. What forms are due when? Where can you find your school’s submission and graduation information? How do you pick the right options for submitting your ETD? Who can you ask for help? In this section, you will find the resources you need to finish and submit your ETD and share your work with the world. Click the title of any post below to read the full post. Have questions? Check our FAQs or Ask an ETD Specialist.

School-Specific Information

Before you start your ETD journey, make sure to know your requirements and contact in your school! The student services staff for each school are the keepers of school-specific requirements for your ETD and graduation. They offer school-specific workshops and trainings for students, and can advise you on issues related to your ETD throughout the whole process. At the end, they are the ones who will review and approve your ETD. Look below for any requirements pages and the contact person for your school. 

Embargo Requests

An embargo is a restriction on public access to a thesis or dissertation for a limited period of time. Usually, ETDs are made publicly available in D-Scholarship@Pitt, the institutional repository at the University of Pittsburgh, with no embargo. The public availability of a thesis or dissertation helps the student with increased exposure, citations, and sharing of their scholarship. An embargo limits access to only people with University of Pittsburgh login credentials. (Please note that after graduation, this embargo will also exclude the student whose Unviersity Computing Account has expired.)

Copyright Registration

Your ETD is protected by copyright the moment it is fixed in a tangible form, whether that is a PDF, DOCX, or LaTeX file. You therefore do not need to register your ETD with the Copyright Office to have a valid copyright in your thesis or dissertation.

 

Bound Versions and Sharing Your ETD

After your ETD is approved, you and your committee members will receive an automated email from D-Scholarship. At that time your ETD will be available in D-Scholarship, subject to any embargo you selected.

Don't forget that after you graduate if your ETD is embargoed you won't be able to access it. Please remember to save a copy of the ETD.  But if you need a copy of your embargoed dissertation or thesis ETD support can assist you.  

Share Your Research Data with D-Scholarship@Pitt

Openness is a value that is increasingly prevalent in research today, with open access, transparency, and sharing as areas of emphasis for institutions, funders, and publishers. Early career researchers can demonstrate to employers and funders a commitment to open research by sharing the research data that supports their ETD. By doing so, others can ask questions of the data and make new discoveries. In turn, you, the original researcher, can increase your citation rates and illustrate impact.