Submitting the Dissertation or Thesis

Following the oral defense and after receiving approval from the director that the dissertation/thesis is ready for submission to the Office of Graduate Education, you must officially submit the dissertation/thesis to an online submission site, ETD Administrator.  ETD Administrator provides guidance through each step in this article.  Complete instructions are also listed below. 

After the document has been successfully submitted to ETD Administrator, ETD Administrator will send an email to the Office of Graduate Education. The Office of Graduate Education will review and approve the formatting of your thesis or dissertation to ensure that DU’s formatting requirements are met. A confirmation will be sent to you once the submission is fully complete.   

Please read the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation policy carefully to completely understand the electronic submission implications for your scholarly work. 

Follow the steps listed below once your thesis or dissertation is approved by the director following the oral defense. After each step, click Save & Continue. 

1. Go to the DU ETD Administrator website.

2. Click on Submit My Dissertation/Thesis and log in using the username and password. Click on Create an Account and enter the information requested to create a new account. A confirmation email will be sent. Click on the link in the email to confirm the account and continue with the submission. 

3. Check the checklist on the left side of the page. As steps are completed, the checklist will be checked off. The dissertation/thesis cannot be submitted until all items are checked. 

4. Read the Submission Instructions page and click Continue. Use the PDF conversion tool on this page if the document needs to be converted to a PDF.  These FAQs from ProQuest may also be helpful.  

5. On the Publishing Options page, select the Traditional Publishing option. Read the information below BEFORE clicking Save & Continue. It is not necessary to select Open Access publishing. The dissertation/thesis will be available Open Access through the University of Denver Libraries, who may choose a 3rd party system. There is no need to pay the additional fee to make it Open Access through ProQuest.  To delay the release of the dissertation/thesis, please read and follow the instructions in the next section regarding embargos. An approved embargo prevents ProQuest and the University of Denver Library from making the dissertation/thesis available for viewing or purchase and can be granted for six months, one year, or two years by the Office of Graduate Education.   

6. Read and accept the Publishing Agreement. 

7. Complete the Contact Information and click Save & Continue. 

8. Enter the Dissertation/Thesis Details and click Save & Continue. 

9. Upload the PDF version of the dissertation/thesis and click Save & Continue. 

10. In the rare event that additional files must be uploaded, such as music or movie clips, upload them and click Save & Continue, otherwise skip this screen and continue. 

11. Enter any notes about the dissertation or thesis in Notes to Administrator and click Save & Continue.   

12. Check the preference for copyrighting the dissertation/thesis and click Save & Continue. The copyright service is optional. 

13. Review the information on the Submit and Pay page and if everything is correct, click Continue with submission. 

14. Review any applicable charges and click Pay with credit card. 

15. Enter the payment information and click Submit Dissertation/Thesis & Pay. 

16. Congratulations, the dissertation/thesis submission process is complete! 

After the thesis or dissertation is submitted to ETD Administrator, the Office of Graduate Education will review its formatting and information provided. You will receive an email when the document has been accepted by the University and the formatting is approved. 

If you are asked to make changes or corrections, you will use your account information to log back in and make the changes. When making the requested changes, you should not begin a new submission. If a new submission is completed, you will be charged the submission fees again. Instead, log back into the initial submission and click on the revision button. A new PDF can be uploaded without having to reenter all of your personal information and without submitting a new payment.

Students should be advised that a thesis or dissertation may be considered to be “previously published” by some publishers if it is put into a searchable digital/electronic repository (e.g. ProQuest). However, it should be noted that the student, not ProQuest (UMI) retains the copyright. 

You should discuss your future thesis/dissertation publication goals with your advisor. If you are planning to publish your thesis or dissertation, you should consider requesting an embargo of your work.   

You will submit a petition through My4D (under “Requests and Other Actions,” select “Request an Academic Exception”) to the Office of Graduate Education explaining the issue and stating that access to the work needs to be restricted. Your advisor will also need to submit a statement of input regarding your embargo request to academicexceptions@du.edu. The Senior Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Education must approve the final decision for permission to embargo the work.  Please note that these requests should be submitted via My4D and not emailed directly to the Senior Vice Provost. 

During an “embargo,” ProQuest will completely restrict access to the document for a specified time period. The thesis or dissertation will be held in the ProQuest repository with no access until the embargo expires. 

Reasons for an Embargo

• The student is interested in pursuing the option of an academic or commercial press in acquiring the rights to publish the dissertation or thesis as a book. 

• The student is interested in submitting work from the thesis/dissertation to a peer-reviewed journal. 

• There are patentable rights in the work in which disclosure may be detrimental to the rights or interests of the author. 

• There is an ethical need to prevent disclosure of sensitive or classified information about persons, institutions, technologies, etc. for a time-limited period. 

If a student believes that they will need to restrict access for a limited time period they can request a six month, one year, or two year embargo.   

When an embargo expires, the thesis or dissertation will be automatically made available electronically by ProQuest. 

Renewing an Embargo

If a student wishes to continue to restrict access for a limited time period, the student can request a six month, one year, or two year renewal on the embargo. A student and his/her thesis/dissertation chair director will submit a second petition via My4D to the Office of Graduate Education explaining the issue and stating that access to the work stills needs to be temporarily restricted. The Senior Vice Provost must approve the final decision for permission to renew an embargo.  A student may only request two embargo renewals for a maximum of a six year embargo period. Students with extenuating circumstances should consult the Office of Graduate Education (gradservices@du.edu). 

If the embargo extension is approved, the student should contact ProQuest directly at 1-800-521-0600 x77020 or via email at disspub@proquest.com.

University Libraries

ProQuest makes the thesis/dissertation available electronically to the University Libraries. The level of access to the student’s work through the University Libraries depends upon embargo choices as described below.   

• If the student does not embargo the work, the library will make the work available through the library’s online catalog, with links to both ProQuest and the library’s digital repository.   

If the student embargos the work for the following two reasons, University Libraries will make the work available only to the DU Community and through Inter-Library Loan in a PDF format. The work will not be made available outside the DU Community or over the internet:   

• The student is interested in pursuing the option of an academic or commercial press in acquiring the rights to publish the dissertation or thesis as a book. 

• The student is interested in submitting work from the thesis/dissertation to a peer-reviewed journal.   

If the student embargos the work for the following two reasons, University Libraries will restrict access to the work until such time that they are notified by ProQuest that the embargo has been released, or when the author provides written permission directly to University Libraries: 

• There are patentable rights in the work or other issues in which disclosure may be detrimental to the rights or interests of the author. 

• There is an ethical need to prevent disclosure of sensitive or classified information about persons, institutions, technologies, etc. for a time-limited period. 

After the embargo period, the work will be made available through University Libraries online catalog, with links to ProQuest and the library’s digital repository.

These procedures are used for submission to the University of Denver Libraries only. 

Opt Out 

In some instances a student may wish to use only the University Libraries as the repository of their work. In such cases the student will submit their work digitally to the Library via the Office of Graduate Education, and it will be made available only to the DU community and through Inter-library Loan in a PDF format.   

A student will submit a petition through My4D (under “Requests and Other Actions,” select “Request an Academic Exception”) to the Senior Vice Provost for Graduate Education explaining the issue and stating that access to the work needs to be restricted. The thesis/dissertation director will also need to submit a statement of input regarding the request to academicexceptions@du.edu. The Senior Vice Provost must approve the final decision for permission to restrict access to the work.  Please note that these requests should be submitted via My4D and not emailed directly to the Senior Vice Provost. 

Permanent Suppression 

In rare cases, where the work includes proprietary information such as company data and records or confidential information that should never be made public, such as client records/interviews or some other serious condition that justifies such an action, it may be appropriate for a student to permanently suppress work. In such cases the student will submit their work electronically to University Libraries via the Office of Graduate Education. The work will be retained by the Library and listed in the catalog system but will not be accessible without permission from the author.   

A student will submit a petition through My4D (under “Requests and Other Actions,” select “Request an Academic Exception”) to the Senior Vice Provost for Graduate Education explaining the issue and stating that access to the work needs to be restricted. The thesis/dissertation director will also need to submit a statement of input regarding the request to academicexceptions@du.edu. The Senior Vice Provost must approve the final decision for permission to restrict access to the work. 

Once the student’s petition is approved by the Senior Vice Provost, the student’s dissertation/thesis will be electronically submitted to the Library via the Office of Graduate Education. The Office of Graduate Education will provide the student with a form to complete. This form collects information for the metadata affiliated with the student’s work. The form must be completed and returned to the Office of Graduate Education accompanying the final, approved version of the student’s dissertation/thesis in PDF format by the submission deadline.