All Drexel University graduate theses and dissertations must be submitted online via ProQuest’s ETD Administrator tool for publication in ProQuest’s Dissertations & Theses database and in the Drexel Research Discovery portal.

The following instructions are for formal theses and dissertations only. Please see the "Master's and Doctoral Project Submissions" section below for information about other graduate projects, including Capstone projects and DNP Projects.

Submission Instructions

All PhD and professional doctoral degree candidates and master's thesis option students must follow the E-Forms process outlined on the Graduation Requirements page, which will generate the below forms and processes. Please note that individual academic programs or departments may have additional requirements. Check with a representative from your program/department for more information. 

1. Complete your thesis or dissertation, including oral defense and post-defense edits, and save it as a PDF.

• Your title page must be formatted as described in the University’s Thesis Manual, maintained by the Office of Graduate Studies. Download this Drexel University logo to use on your title page.
• All other formatting standards are the responsibility of your advisor. Style guides appropriate for most disciplines are available through the Drexel Libraries.
  

2. Add a page with your committee's approvals before the title page.

• Once all committee members and stakeholders have noted their approval of the final thesis or dissertation file in the E-Forms system, use the "Export to PDF" button in the E-Forms system to generate the Thesis/Dissertation Approval Form and Signature Page. This page must be incorporated as the very first page of your final thesis or dissertation file.  
• Please note: Older Doctoral (D) Forms; the older, fillable PDF version of the Thesis/Dissertation Approval Form and Signature Page; and the Graduate Program Completion Form, which are no longer in use except in rare cases, can be found on the Office of Graduate Studies Forms page. All should follow the E-Forms process unless otherwise advised by their program officials. 

3. Create an ETD Admin account.

• Go to Drexel's ETD Admin website and click 'submit' to create an account. Follow the steps to upload your document. This will take approximately 20 to 30 minutes.

Graduate students who complete a final project at the end of their program have the option to submit their projects to the Drexel Research Discovery portal, where they are made publicly accessible. Some programs require students archive their Master’s/Doctoral projects in the Drexel Research Discovery portal. Each program may have additional requirements or preferences. Contact your advisor for more information.

Projects can differ greatly in appearance and arrangement. Every project must include a title page with your name, the full title of your project, and the month/year. If your department does not have a template, please use the template in the University’s Thesis Manual [PDF]. Replace “thesis” in the first line with the name of your project type (Culminating Project, Capstone Project, etc.)

To submit a graduate project, please fill out the Graduate Project Submission form. The form includes complete instructions, required filename conventions and a link to the most recent version of the Drexel University Archives Deposit Agreement. 

Please submit the following:

• Required: Signed Drexel University Archives Deposit Agreement
• Required: Your primary project file. This should be in PDF format whenever possible, but other file types are permitted if they are more suitable for your project.
• Optional: A supplementary file, if applicable. If you have more than one supplementary file, please contact libthesis@drexel.edu to make other arrangements.

For questions or more information, email libthesis@drexel.edu.

Q: What is ORCID?

ORCID (which stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is an initiative to disambiguate authors of scholarly works through unique, persistent identifiers. Creating an ORCID is optional; however, the Drexel Libraries recommends each researcher creates a unique ORCID and populates the record with information about their research activities. Visit the Libraries’ ORCID resource guide for more information.

Q: Can I delay publication of my work?

You have the option to temporarily delay the public release of your thesis or dissertation by placing an embargo on it. At the end of the embargo period, your dissertation or thesis will become publicly accessible unless you request an extension. All requests for extensions must be made at least one month in advance.

Embargoes must be requested separately for the ProQuest database and the Drexel Research Discovery portal:

• An embargo in the Drexel Research Discovery portal must be requested by your advisor. For most, this is part of the E-Forms process. For others not using E-Forms, your advisor must send an email to archives@drexel.edu, giving their permission and specifying the length of embargo requested (6 months, 1 year or 2 years). This request should be made BEFORE you submit your thesis/dissertation. You may request an extension on an embargo by emailing archives@drexel.edu at least one month in advance of the embargo’s expiration.
• An embargo in the ProQuest database must be requested as part of the online submission process. Please specify the length of the embargo (6 months, 1 year or 2 years). To extend an embargo in the ProQuest database, contact ProQuest at disspub@proquest.com at least one month in advance of the embargo’s expiration.

Q: Is my work covered by copyright?

You retain copyright of your work regardless of whether you formally register it. You may register copyright directly with the U.S. Copyright Office. If submitting via the ETD Administrator, the submission process includes an option to register copyright through ProQuest for a fee.

Drexel University has the right to reproduce and publicly distribute copies of your thesis for limited and noncommercial purposes, per the Drexel University Intellectual Property Policy. For more information, please read ProQuest’s Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis Guide.

Q: Where can I get personal copies printed and bound?

The Libraries does not provide printing or binding services. ProQuest’s ETD Administrator tool offers the option to purchase bound copies during the submission process. Please review ProQuest’s guidelines on how to prepare your manuscript to ensure it will reproduce well in print.

You may also use a third-party binding service such as HF Group and Wert Bookbinding.

Q: Can I submit supplemental files in addition to the PDF of my thesis, like data sets, audio interview files, or illustrations?

Yes. You may submit supplemental files during the submission process.

 

Q: Can my work be found in Google Scholar?

By default, all works submitted through the ETD Administrator tool will be discoverable in ProQuest through Google Scholar and other major search engines. You may opt out during the submission process. More information is available on the “Publishing Options” page of the ETD Admin submission process.

Once deposited in the Drexel Research Discovery portal, your work will be indexed by major search engines and is available to all users, in accordance with any embargo you have requested. There is no option to opt out during the submission process.