Electronic Thesis & Dissertation FAQs

An ETD is an electronic version of a thesis or dissertation. The ETD is formatted like a traditional paper thesis or dissertation (with pagination, table of contents, figures, references, etc.) but is saved as a PDF and submitted electronically through the ETD submission website to the Graduate School for review and approval. Shortly after degree conferral, your thesis or dissertation will be delivered to the University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) once accessible and to ProQuest. Your manuscript (and any supplemental files) will be cataloged and publicly accessible in perpetuity through the UBIR. Please refer to the Public Access of Theses and Dissertations policy for more information.

Your ETD will also be microfilmed, cataloged and published through ProQuest’s dissertations and theses database, the world’s largest recognized repository of graduate student research.

An ETD makes your research quickly accessible to a broad audience, while reducing printing and binding costs for you and processing and physical storage costs for the university. The electronic format is widely accessible and can incorporate a range of enhanced formats, including multimedia.

You should submit your dissertation only after your defense and after all recommended revisions have been incorporated and approved by your major advisor and committee members. Please see our Important Academic Deadlines page and our Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Guidelines page for more information regarding deadlines for conferral materials and submission of your thesis or dissertation.

Yes. Accessibility formatting found in the ETD template is required for all submissions.

You will submit your thesis or dissertation as a PDF via the ProQuest ETD submission website. To assist with accessibility, students are required to submit their document in an approved secondary format: Microsoft Word (.docx), HTML (.html), or EPUB (.epub). LaTeX (.tex) files do not satisfy this requirement.

As you’re writing your dissertation, refer to the ETD administrator website for tips on how to format your manuscript so that your later conversion to PDF from MS Word, LaTex, etc. will go smoothly. In MS Word, use "Save as PDF". Do not print to PDF or use Quartz to convert to PDF. Avoid using ProQuest's PDF converter.

The Graduate School reviews submissions in the order they are received and will register a decision of “accepted” or “minor revisions required.” You will receive the decision via email from etdadministrator@proquest.com. 

One to two weeks. ETDs are reviewed in the order received. During peak times (i.e., immediately preceding degree conferral), it may take up to two weeks to receive a decision. 

Yes, as long as you have submitted your dissertation or thesis by the published deadline, you have met the deadline. 

We will contact you If any conferral materials are missing or if your ETD requires revisions, and when it’s approved.

If your submission requires revisions, you will be able to make those after the deadline.

Copyright is established as soon as the dissertation is fixed in a tangible medium, i.e., saved on a computer hard drive. It is your choice whether or not to then register that copyright. Registering the copyright will allow you to file suit against anyone who infringes upon this copyright in the future. Registration with the U.S. Copyright Office is not required in order to establish copyright. The rights of a copyright owner include the ability to make copies of the work, make derivative works, distribute copies of the work, perform the work publicly and display the work publicly. Whether or not you choose to register your copyright, you retain the rights to your dissertation and may authorize others (i.e., a publisher or another researcher) to exercise them.

If your manuscript contains previously copyrighted material, you must be sure to obtain written permission from the author(s). Ensure that you receive written copyright permission for any previously published items that you plan to use in your thesis or dissertation. Such proprietary information includes long excerpts, tables, figures, photographs and charts from previously published books or other print material, as well as “screen shots” or other images from copyrighted websites. Include any copyright permission letters as an appendix in your electronic submission.

For the “traditional publishing” option, there is no fee. If you select the optional services of “open access publishing,” copyright filing or purchasing bound copies of your dissertation from ProQuest, there are associated fees. These fees are paid directly to ProQuest at time of submission.

• Traditional publishing:  No Fee. 
• Open access publishing:  $95.
• Copyright filing by ProQuest to the U.S. Library of Congress: $75.

You must complete the Request for Embargo (Delayed Release) of Thesis or Dissertation form and submit it to the Graduate School at the time you upload your manuscript through the ETD submission site. Please refer to the Graduate School's Embargo (Delayed Release) of Thesis or Dissertation policy for more information.

This question refers to your agreement with ProQuest. With traditional publishing, the author contracts with ProQuest to reproduce, distribute and sell copies of the thesis or dissertation, and ProQuest provides the author with royalties from those sales. Open access publishing provides the broadest means of complete access to the thesis or dissertation for viewing or downloading by anyone with access to the internet. To make an informed decision regarding your publishing options from ProQuest, please review ProQuest's Publishing Option's Guide and discuss the choices with your advisor. Please remember that your manuscript will also be publicly accessible through UB's Institutional Repository (UBIR) once confirmed to meet accessibility guidelines.