What is an ETD? *

An ETD is a document that explains the research or scholarship of a graduate student in an electronic format. It is simultaneously suitable for machine archives and worldwide retrieval. The ETD is similar to its paper predecessor. For example, it has figures, tables, footnotes, and references. It also has a title page with the author's name, the official name of the university, the degree sought, and the names of the committee members. Furthermore, it may describe why the work was done, how the research relates to previous work as recorded in the literature, the research methods used, the results, and the interpretation and discussion of the results, and a summary with conclusions.

The ETD is different from its paper predecessor, however, in a few important aspects. First, it provides a technologically advanced medium for expressing your ideas. You may prepare an ETD by using nearly any word processor or document preparation system, and by incorporating relevant multimedia objects. Second, it is less expensive for you to prepare. By creating an ETD, you avoid the requirement of submitting multiple copies on special paper. Third, ETDs promote greater access to your research. ETDs are made available to anyone that browses the World Wide Web. They consume virtually no library shelf space, and never collect dust.

Overall, ETDs contribute to worldwide graduate education and unlock the underutilized results of graduate research for the scholarly community.

* Taken in part from Virginia Tech's ETD Web Site - http://etd.vt.edu/background

What are the Benefits of ETDs?

Increased Accessability
Rapid distribution and free availability of ETDs on-line provides greater accessibility. Paper theses and dissertations have traditionally been underutilized. On average UC's Archives and Rare Book Department receives a request for approximately 10 paper theses or dissertations copies per month. The number of UC ETDs accessed on OhioLink has increased tremendously over the past few years. In the month of August 2005, 5,793 UC ETDs were accessed. That number has grown to 19,939 for August 2006. Imagine that you are the author of a dissertation produced in 1996. If your electronic document was accessed 9,920 times during 1997, by the end of 1998, the document would have been accessed 56,399 times. This actually occurred with one electronic dissertation produced at Virginia Tech.

ETDs are available without regard to time or place of the researcher. Electronic documents are a crucial tool necessary if you desire others to Access your research more effectively. Currently, 113 NDLTD Member Universities worldwide have been networked to give you access to ETDs. In its second year, the ETD Project at the University of Cincinnati is the leader in electronic graduate research in Ohio.

Reduced Cost
Free conversion of word-processed files to final documents reduces the costs traditionally associated with producing a thesis or dissertation. On average, a graduate student producing two final copies submitted on paper can plan to spend approximately $106.50 to produce a text document not containing additional photographs or special illustrations.

Sample cost for a non-electronic dissertation:

The cost for an ETD is $0.00.

Sample cost for an electronic dissertation:

It is evident that the bottom-line to the student is more attractive when submitting an ETD, but it is also better for the university. Paper documents are costly to store and maintain. By submitting electronically, you allow your university to fulfill more economically its responsibilities of recording and archiving your thesis or dissertation. This is a key responsibility of the university that is easier and less costly to fulfill when the workflow involves electronic documents. Overall, ETDs reduce the Budget demands for the student and the university.

Electronic Formats Enable Inclusion of Multimedia
In a non-electronic dissertation or thesis, the requirements for adding illustrations are stringent. As an author, you are limited to items like drawings, graphs, photographs, chemical formulas, or musical scores or passages. If you choose to use any of these items, you need to be certain to purchase a special type of ink and you are limited to grayscale images. In addition, the processing and mounting techniques for items like photographs are limited, and require special processing paper and mounting methods.

With the introduction of the electronic version, the types of information that can be included in a disseration have become much larger. Some students have used video and audio to capture the essence of their research. One example of this can be seen by viewing the digital video included in the following Master's Thesis by Timur Oral: Oral, Timur, April 16, 1997. Other students have used color photos and landscape features to accentuate their documents. One example of this was submitted by David Orens in his Master's Thesis, Orens, David M., April 30, 1997. As you can see, many creative options are available to you when submitting an electronic thesis or dissertation. Including complex multimedia objects in an ETD is a relatively new possibility, and those attempting this are pioneers. We challenge you to go beyond the boundaries of the current frontier and expand your realm of creativity.