March, a month full of allergies, college basketball brackets, and defenses. Defenses? Yes. DEFENSES. The month of March is usually a busy time for graduate students and defense committees. As peak defense season approaches, the Graduate School team has prepared a brief guide to navigating the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) process. You can find this information and more on the Graduate School’s ETD webpage.
Know the deadlines for your graduation semester
Graduate students must follow specific deadlines related to defenses and the ETD Process. You should review these deadlines at the start of the semester you intend to graduate. The deadlines for defense, document reviews, and final submission are posted three semesters in advance on the Graduate School’s ETD webpage.
Setting a date for your defense
Once you and your committee have decided on a firm date, time, and location for the thesis/dissertation/doctoral essay/lecture recital essay defense, you must fill out the Defense Notice Form online. Defenses are a public event, so the information is published on the Graduate School’s website. If you have never been to a defense before, this page can be a great resource to check out other defenses happening in your department, so you know what to expect.
Preparing your ETD document
Some students put together their ETD document only after they have defended, while others work on it progressively throughout their last semester(s). In either case, you’ll need to submit your ETD document to the Graduate School for review. You can make this task as hassle-free as possible by knowing what to expect and making a plan for getting things done on deadline. Do yourself a favor—don’t wait until the last minute and risk having to move your graduation date to the next semester. Here are some helpful tips:
- Review the Graduate School’s ETD webpage in detail. Here you’ll find:
- Submission Instructions for the ETD Process
- Microsoft Word front matter templates to help you format the unnumbered front matter: The unnumbered front matter must look the same in all ETDs so download the appropriate template and use it to format the Title, Copyright, Signature, and Abstract pages.
- Graduate School formatting guidelines: These are formatting items that deviate and supersede the main style guide you and your committee have chosen for your document.
- Access to required ETD forms: All required ETD forms (Certificate of Defense Approval form, ETD Final Content Approval form, and ETD Availability Agreement form) can be submitted online to the Graduate School—no hard copies or signatures required. The Graduate School must receive these forms fully signed (by your chair, other committee members, and/or program director) in order for you to obtain permission to upload the final PDF in the ETD repository.
- E-mail your draft document to the Graduate School’s Associate Director of Programs for formatting review to ensure the document is formatted per Graduate School requirements. Tip: Allow time for more than one formatting review.
- If you need it, seek out help with Microsoft Word on your document’s formatting and final PDF conversion from the ETD Formatting Support Team in Richter Library, dfs@miami.edu. The team is currently assisting students by e-mail, phone, and Zoom.
Scholarship@Miami Institutional Repository
Have a look at final documents in Scholarship@Miami, the University’s ETD repository, that were previously submitted by students in your program. Doing this can allow you to see what a final thesis/dissertation/doctoral essay/lecture recital essay looks like and what particular committee members might expect you to include—content-wise—in your own document. In the Scholarship@Miami repository, you’ll find a searchable open-access collection of UM electronic dissertations and theses since 2007. You’ll also be able to view ETD documents submitted prior to 2007 by students in your program by searching and accessing UM dissertations from 1961 through part of 2007 available from ProQuest. Scholarship@Miami is also the database where your final ETD will reside.
Final ETD Upload and Approval
Once you have passed your defense, finished your ETD document, and had it reviewed by your committee and the Graduate School, you’ll be given permission to upload the final PDF of your thesis or dissertation in Scholarship@Miami, the University’s ETD repository. The Graduate School will review your upload and approve the ETD if there are no issues. Upon approval, your ETD requirement will be completed!
Have questions? Contact Doreen Yamamoto, Associate Director of Programs at the Graduate School, for any ETD-related matter: grad.dissertation@miami.edu.
ETD FAQs
-
Embargos
Q: If I elect to embargo my thesis or dissertation, how is the submission acknowledged after it is approved? What, if anything, will be "viewable" to the public?
A: If you embargo your dissertation, the existence of the document will be viewable publicly after the Graduate School has approved the dissertation, but the document will not be downloadable from anywhere for the duration of the time period selected. You can view examples of documents that are embargoed or available for open access in the UM ETD repository: Scholarship@Miami.
- Survey of Earned Doctorates and UM Doctoral Exit Survey (doctoral students only)
- ProQuest/UMI
- Bound Copy of ETD
- Degree Conferral
