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EBSCO Open Dissertations

EBSCO Open Dissertations makes electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) more accessible to researchers worldwide. The free portal is designed to benefit universities and their students and make ETDs more discoverable. 

Increasing Discovery & Usage of ETD Research

EBSCO Open Dissertations is a collaboration between EBSCO and BiblioLabs to increase traffic and discoverability of ETD research. You can join the movement and add your theses and dissertations to the database, making them freely available to researchers everywhere while increasing traffic to your institutional repository. 

EBSCO Open Dissertations extends the work started in 2014, when EBSCO and the H.W. Wilson Foundation created American Doctoral Dissertations which contained indexing from the H.W. Wilson print publication, Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities, 1933-1955. In 2015, the H.W. Wilson Foundation agreed to support the expansion of the scope of the American Doctoral Dissertations database to include records for dissertations and theses from 1955 to the present.

How Does EBSCO Open Dissertations Work?

Your ETD metadata is harvested via OAI and integrated into EBSCO’s platform, where pointers send traffic to your IR.

EBSCO integrates this data into their current subscriber environments and makes the data available on the open web via opendissertations.org .

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EBSCO Open Dissertations

Search millions of electronic theses and dissertations (etds).

With EBSCO Open Dissertations, institutions and students are offered an innovative approach to driving additional traffic to ETDs in institutional repositories. Our goal is to help make their students’ theses and dissertations as widely visible and cited as possible.

This approach extends the work started in 2014, when EBSCO and the H.W. Wilson Foundation created American Doctoral Dissertations which contained indexing from the H.W. Wilson print publication, Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities, 1933-1955. In 2015, the H.W. Wilson Foundation agreed to support the expansion of the scope of the American Doctoral Dissertations database to include records for dissertations and theses from 1955 to the present.

Get involved in the EBSCO Open Dissertations project and make your electronic theses and dissertations freely available to researchers everywhere. Please contact Margaret Richter for more information.

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• RIT Libraries
• Thesis and Dissertation Resources
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• Thesis Writing Guides
• Writing in Engineering and Science

Why search this literature?

It is crucial for graduate students to search the thesis and dissertation literature to make sure that an idea or hypothesis has not already been tested, explored, and published.  An additional reason to search this literature is that it is rich with ideas and information not found elsewhere.  If graduate students do not continue on as academics or if students that came after them in their programs did not continue their research, this literature may be the end of the line for scholarship on a topic.

ProQuest has published dissertation e-learning modules covering the usefulness of using dissertations as a research source.  See link below:

• Dissertation eLearning resources from ProQuest Uncover the value of dissertations.

Library Databases

All graduate students should, at minimum, search the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global database (PQDT) to see if the research they are proposing to do has already been done by a student at another institution/university.  RIT dissertations and theses have been included in PQDT since approximately 2006.

• Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window Identifies Ph.D. dissertations from U.S. & Canadian universities since 1861. Abstracts from 1980. Master's theses from 1988. Many with full-text.

RIT Digital Institutional Repository

• Digital Institutional Repository The digital institutional repository for the Rochester Institute of Technology, managed by RIT Libraries.
• ProQuest - Most Accessed Dissertations/Theses

Each month ProQuest updates this list of the top 25 Most-Accessed Dissertations and Theses across all subjects, based upon total PDF downloads. Find out what is trending.

The web sites below should also be consulted as appropriate to perform a full and thorough review of the dissertation and thesis literature beyond your introductory search of ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.  Consider whether a particular country or part of the world would have an interest in your potential research topic.

Only large-scale repositories of dissertations and theses are included here. You may also need to search individual university repositories directly.

• Ebsco Open Dissertations Search thousands of open dissertations and theses from over 50 participating libraries.
• EThOS (from the British Library) EThOS offers a 'single point of access' where researchers the world over can access ALL theses produced by UK Higher Education.
• Indian Institute of Science Dissertations and theses from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
• Indian Theses and Dissertations (Shodhganga) Over 130 participating Indian universities and over 8800 ETD documents.
• National ETD Portal (South Africa) South African theses and dissertations.
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). The NDLTD Union Catalog contains more than one million records of electronic theses and dissertations. Search the Union Catalog from here: http://thumper.vtls.com:6090/?theme=NDLTD
• OhioLINK ETD Center Electronic theses and dissertations from colleges and universities in the state of Ohio.
• Open Access Theses and Dissertations OATD aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 600 colleges, universities, and research institutions. OATD currently indexes over 1.5 million theses and dissertations. RIT is included.
• Theses Canada Canadian universities voluntarily participate by submitting approved theses and dissertation to Theses Canada. Click on "Search Theses Canada" under the Introduction on the left hand side of the page to begin your search.
• TROVE From the National Library of Australia - Search Trove to explore amazing collections from Australian libraries, universities, museums, galleries and archives.
• Next: Thesis Writing Guides >>

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Search the 6,478,785 electronic theses and dissertations contained in the NDLTD archive:

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Open Access Theses & Dissertations (OATD)

You are here.

An index of over 1.6 million electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). To the extent possible, the index is limited to records of graduate-level theses that are freely available online.

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Theses & dissertations: home, access to theses and dissertations from other institutions and from the university of cambridge.

This guide provides information on searching for theses of Cambridge PhDs and for theses of UK universities and universities abroad. 

For information and guidance on depositing your thesis as a cambridge phd, visit the cambridge office of scholarly communication pages on theses here ., this guide gives essential information on how to obtain theses using the british library's ethos service. .

On the last weekend of October, the British Library became the victim of a major cyber-attack. Essential digital services including the BL catalogue, website and online learning resources went dark, with research services like the EThOS collection of more than 600,000 doctoral theses suddenly unavailable. The BL state that they anticipate restoring more services in the next few weeks, but disruption to certain services is now expected to persist for several months. For the latest news on the attack and information on the restoration of services, please follow the BL blog here:  Knowledge Matters blog  and access the LibGuide page here:  British Library Outage Update - Electronic Legal Deposit - LibGuides at University of Cambridge Subject Libraries

A full list of resources for searching theses online is provided by the Cambridge A-Z, available here .

University of Cambridge theses

Finding a cambridge phd thesis online via the institutional repository.

The University's institutional repository, Apollo , holds full-text digital versions of over 11,000 Cambridge PhD theses and is a rapidly growing collection deposited by Cambridge Ph.D. graduates. Theses in Apollo can be browsed via this link . More information on how to access theses by University of Cambridge students can be found on the access to Cambridge theses webpage.   The requirement for impending PhD graduates to deposit a digital version in order to graduate means the repository will be increasing at a rate of approximately 1,000 per year from this source.   About 200 theses are added annually through requests to make theses Open Access or via requests to digitize a thesis in printed format.

Locating and obtaining a copy of a Cambridge PhD thesis (not yet available via the repository)

Theses can be searched in iDiscover .  Guidance on searching for theses in iDiscover can be found here .   Requests for consultation of printed theses, not available online, should be made at the Manuscripts Reading Room (Email:  [email protected] Telephone: +44 (0)1223 333143).   Further information on the University Library's theses, dissertations and prize essays collections can be consulted at this link .

Researchers can order a copy of an unpublished thesis which was deposited in print form either through the Library’s  Digital Content Unit via the image request form , or, if the thesis has been digitised, it may be available in the Apollo repository. Copies of theses may be provided to researchers in accordance with the  law  and in a manner that is common across UK libraries.  The law allows us to provide whole copies of unpublished theses to individuals as long as they sign a declaration saying that it is for non-commercial research or private study.

How to make your thesis available online through Cambridge's institutional repository

Are you a Cambridge alumni and wish to make your Ph.D. thesis available online? You can do this by depositing it in Apollo the University's institutional repository. Click here for further information on how to proceed.    Current Ph.D students at the University of Cambridge can find further information about the requirements to deposit theses on the Office of Scholarly Communication theses webpages.

UK Theses and Dissertations

Electronic copies of Ph.D. theses submitted at over 100 UK universities are obtainable from EThOS , a service set up to provide access to all theses from participating institutions. It achieves this by harvesting e-theses from Institutional Repositories and by digitising print theses as they are ordered by researchers using the system. Over 250,000 theses are already available in this way. Please note that it does not supply theses submitted at the universities of Cambridge or Oxford although they are listed on EThOS.

Registration with EThOS is not required to search for a thesis but is necessary to download or order one unless it is stored in the university repository rather than the British Library (in which case a link to the repository will be displayed). Many theses are available without charge on an Open Access basis but in all other cases, if you are requesting a thesis that has not yet been digitised you will be asked to meet the cost. Once a thesis has been digitised it is available for free download thereafter.

When you order a thesis it will either be immediately available for download or writing to hard copy or it will need to be digitised. If you order a thesis for digitisation, the system will manage the process and you will be informed when the thesis is available for download/preparation to hard copy.

See the Search results section of the  help page for full information on interpreting search results in EThOS.

EThOS is managed by the British Library and can be found at http://ethos.bl.uk . For more information see About EThOS .

World-wide (incl. UK) theses and dissertations

Electronic versions of non-UK theses may be available from the institution at which they were submitted, sometimes on an open access basis from the institutional repository. A good starting point for discovering freely available electronic theses and dissertations beyond the UK is the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) , which facilitates searching across institutions. Information can also usually be found on the library web pages of the relevant institution.

The DART Europe etheses portal lists several thousand full-text theses from a group of European universities.

The University Library subscribes to the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses  (PQDT) database which from August 31 2023 is accessed on the Web of Science platform.  To search this index select it from the Web of Science "Search in" drop-down list of databases (available on the Documents tab on WoS home page)

PQDT includes 2.4 million dissertation and theses citations, representing 700 leading academic institutions worldwide from 1861 to the present day. The database offers full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and strong retrospective full text coverage for older graduate works. Each dissertation published since July 1980 includes a 350-word abstract written by the author. Master's theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The University Library only subscribes to the abstracting & indexing version of the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database and NOT the full text version.  A fee is payable for ordering a dissertation from this source.   To obtain the full text of a dissertation as a downloadable PDF you can submit your request via the University Library Inter-Library Loans department (see contact details below). NB this service is only available to full and current members of the University of Cambridge.

Alternatively you can pay yourself for the dissertation PDF on the PQDT platform. Link from Web of Science record display of any thesis to PQDT by clicking on "View Details on ProQuest".  On the "Preview" page you will see an option "Order a copy" top right.  This will allow you to order your own copy from ProQuest directly.

Dissertations and theses submitted at non-UK universities may also be requested on Inter-Library Loan through the Inter-Library Loans department (01223 333039 or 333080, [email protected] )

• Last Updated: Dec 20, 2023 9:47 AM
• URL: https://libguides.cam.ac.uk/theses

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Dissertations and Theses

• EBSCO Open Dissertations
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations Provides free access to thousands of dissertation and thesis abstracts from universities around the world, and links to full text when freely available.

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How to search for Harvard dissertations

• DASH , Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard, is the university's central, open-access repository for the scholarly output of faculty and the broader research community at Harvard.  Most Ph.D. dissertations submitted from  March 2012 forward  are available online in DASH.
• Check HOLLIS, the Library Catalog, and refine your results by using the   Advanced Search   and limiting Resource  Type   to Dissertations
• Search the database  ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global Don't hesitate to  Ask a Librarian  for assistance.

How to search for Non-Harvard dissertations

Library Database:

• ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global

Free Resources:

• Many  universities  provide full-text access to their dissertations via a digital repository.  If you know the title of a particular dissertation or thesis, try doing a Google search.  

Related Sites

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Finding Theses and Dissertations

• International Theses
• Queen's University Theses
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• United States Theses
• Borrowing & Purchasing Copies of Theses

International Theses: Search Tools

Proquest dissertations and theses.

A comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world from 1861-present. Full text  since 1997. Abstracts  since 1980 for doctoral dissertations and 1988 for masters' theses. Citations  since 1861.

Citations are indexed in Web of Science in the  ProQuest ™ Dissertations & Theses Citation Index  collection. 

Center for Research Libraries

CRL holds more than 800,000 doctoral dissertations outside of the U.S. and Canada. Search dissertations in the dissertations section of the CRL catalogue. Digitized dissertations can be searched in the catalogue's e-resources section.

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations

A collection of more than 800,000 international full text theses and dissertations.

Google Scholar

Try searching Google Scholar for theses posted on institutional digital repositories or on personal web pages.

ScienceDirect

A web search engine devoted to Science and Technology.

Search for dissertations, theses and published material based on theses catalogued in WorldCat by OCLC member libraries worldwide. In Advanced Search, you can search by author, title, subject, year, and keyword. Under Subtype Limits, select Theses/Dissertation from the Any Content menu

International Theses: By Country

Österreichische Dissertationsdatenbank

The Austrian dissertation database contains the bibliographical data of dissertations approved in Austria from 1990 on, and in most cases the relevant abstracts. (This website is hosted by the National Library of Austria).

National Library of Australia’s Trove Service

Search for full text digital theses from Australian universities.  On the Advanced search screen under Format, select Thesis.

DART-Europe :  Access to full text theses and dissertations from many countries in Europe.

Europeana : Additional electronic dissertations from other European libraries.

Système universitaire de documentation  (Sudoc): Provides access to records and some electronic theses and dissertations published at French research institutions.

Fichier central des thèses

DissOnline provides information on the subject of electronic university publications. It can be used to find out directly all about online dissertations and post-doctoral theses. Sample documents can be downloaded to provide help in the creation of electronic university publications. For more information about the portal, please go to  German National Library  website  (DNB) .

México

TESIUNAM: Tesis del Sistema Bibliotecario de la Unam

(Theses from the National University of Mexico / Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México). To search for electronic theses, click on “tesis electrónicas (REDUNAM).”

Middle East

The Center for Research Libraries and the British Library have made available online 400 UK doctoral theses focusing on the Middle East, Islamic studies, and related subjects.  More information .

The Netherlands

Some Dutch e-theses are available through NARCIS.

South America 

• Some electronic theses from Bolivia, Brasil, Chile and Peru can be found at  Cybertesis.NET , a portal created by the University of Chile (Information Services & Library System) that provides an easily accessible tool to full text electronic theses published in different universities of the world.

For more university/national library catalogues, search for the word University/Universidad and the country (Argentina, Peru, etc.) in Google. Find the link to the library ( biblioteca ) and search the catalogue for theses ( tesis ). You may need to click on the advanced search function ( búsqueda guíada  or  búsqueda avanzada ) and select tesis as a format or type. ​

There are several portals/catalogues in Spain for theses and dissertations. Here are some examples listed on Spain’s  National Library  website:

Spain’s Ministry of Education thesis database (TESEO)

Biblioteca Virtual del Español (on the Biblioteca Virtual, Miguel de Cervantes website)

Universidad Complutense de Madrid’s catalogue

TDX (Tesis Doctorals en Xarxa)

This is a cooperative repository of digital theses from the University of Cataluña and other autonomous communities (such as Murcia, Cantabria, Barcelona, and Oviedo)

Switzerland

For print and electronic dissertations, please consult the  Swiss National Library  website.

• NDLTD: National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan is an open full-text permanent archive of scholarly research in Taiwan.

EThOS : Access to doctoral dissertations (paper and electronic) from UK institutions of higher education.

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• Last Updated: May 9, 2024 3:14 PM
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How to tackle the PhD dissertation

Finding time to write can be a challenge for graduate students who often juggle multiple roles and responsibilities. Mabel Ho provides some tips to make the process less daunting

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Writing helps you share your work with the wider community. Your scholarship is important and you are making a valuable contribution to the field. While it might be intimidating to face a blank screen, remember, your first draft is not your final draft! The difficult part is getting something on the page to begin with. 

As the adage goes, a good dissertation is a done dissertation, and the goal is for you to find balance in your writing and establish the steps you can take to make the process smoother. Here are some practical strategies for tackling the PhD dissertation.

Write daily

This is a time to have honest conversations with yourself about your writing and work habits. Do you tackle the most challenging work in the morning? Or do you usually start with emails? Knowing your work routine will help you set parameters for the writing process, which includes various elements, from brainstorming ideas to setting outlines and editing. Once you are aware of your energy and focus levels, you’ll be ready to dedicate those times to writing.

While it might be tempting to block a substantial chunk of time to write and assume anything shorter is not useful, that is not the case. Writing daily, whether it’s a paragraph or several pages, keeps you in conversation with your writing practice. If you schedule two hours to write, remember to take a break during that time and reset. You can try:

• The Pomodoro Technique: a time management technique that breaks down your work into intervals
• Taking breaks: go outside for a walk or have a snack so you can come back to your writing rejuvenated
• Focus apps: it is easy to get distracted by devices and lose direction. Here are some app suggestions: Focus Bear (no free version); Forest (free version available); Cold Turkey website blocker (free version available) and Serene (no free version). 

This is a valuable opportunity to hone your time management and task prioritisation skills. Find out what works for you and put systems in place to support your practice. 

• Resources on academic writing for higher education professionals
• Stretch your work further by ‘triple writing’
• What is your academic writing temperament?

Create a community

While writing can be an isolating endeavour, there are ways to start forming a community (in-person or virtual) to help you set goals and stay accountable. There might be someone in your cohort who is also at the writing stage with whom you can set up a weekly check-in. Alternatively, explore your university’s resources and centres because there may be units and departments on campus that offer helpful opportunities, such as a writing week or retreat. Taking advantage of these opportunities helps combat isolation, foster accountability and grow networks. They can even lead to collaborations further down the line.

• Check in with your advisers and mentors. Reach out to your networks to find out about other people’s writing processes and additional resources.
• Don’t be afraid to share your work. Writing requires constant revisions and edits and finding people who you trust with feedback will help you grow as a writer. Plus, you can also read their work and help them with their editing process.
• Your community does not have to be just about writing!  If you enjoy going on hikes or trying new coffee shops, make that part of your weekly habit.  Sharing your work in different environments will help clarify your thoughts and ideas.

Address the why

The PhD dissertation writing process is often lengthy and it is sometimes easy to forget why you started. In these moments, it can be helpful to think back to what got you excited about your research and scholarship in the first place. Remember it is not just the work but also the people who propelled you forward. One idea is to start writing your “acknowledgements” section. Here are questions to get you started:

• Do you want to dedicate your work to someone? 
• What ideas sparked your interest in this journey? 
• Who cheered you on? 

This practice can help build momentum, as well as serve as a good reminder to carve out time to spend with your community. 

You got this!

Writing is a process. Give yourself grace, as you might not feel motivated all the time. Be consistent in your approach and reward yourself along the way. There is no single strategy when it comes to writing or maintaining motivation, so experiment and find out what works for you. 

Suggested readings

• Thriving as a Graduate Writer by Rachel Cayley (2023)
• Destination Dissertation by Sonja K. Foss and William Waters (2015)
• The PhD Writing Handbook by Desmond Thomas (2016).

Mabel Ho is director of professional development and student engagement at Dalhousie University.

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week,  sign up for the Campus newsletter .

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Finding theses

University of sydney theses, higher degree by research theses.

We hold theses written by the University’s Higher Degree by Research (PhD or Masters by Research) students in our collections.

You can find a University of Sydney thesis by searching the  Library catalogue . Select the “Advanced search” and then select “USYD Theses” from the “Material type” dropdown menu.

You can also find digital theses by searching directly in the Sydney eScholarship repository .

Access a digital or digitised thesis

Many of the University’s digital and digitised theses are openly available for download through the Sydney eScholarship repository .

Theses marked “University of Sydney Access” are only available to current University staff and students. Libraries and private researchers can request to purchase a copy of a University of Sydney Access only thesis for AUD$18.50 (incl. GST, within Australia) or AUD$40.00 (international requests).

To purchase a digital thesis, you need to complete one of the relevant request forms below and submit it to [email protected] :

• Individuals requesting a thesis, or library requesting on behalf of an individual
• Libraries requesting a copy to be included in their collection

All requests for copies of material held at the University of Sydney Library must comply with the  Copyright Act of 1968 .

Access a hard copy thesis

Theses that are only available in printed format can be viewed in the Rare Books and Special Collections Library , Level 1, Fisher Library.

We are currently running a project to digitise hardcopy theses. You can request an update to find out where a particular thesis is in our digitisation queue by emailing [email protected] .

We don’t digitise theses on request.

Honours or postgraduate coursework theses

Search for an honours or postgraduate coursework thesis in the repository , then use the filters on the left side of the results page to narrow by “Type”.

You can also search the Honours and Postgraduate Coursework theses collection for a faculty, school or discipline (if available).

There are limited numbers of honours theses in the Sydney eScholarship repository as we have strict requirements for submission of honours theses . If you can't find the thesis you're looking for, we suggest contacting the relevant faculty office.

Theses from other Australian and New Zealand universities

Find a thesis from other Australian or New Zealand universities by searching:

• Australian theses via Trove
• Libraries Australia for Higher Degree theses awarded from 1989 onwards
• Education Research Theses for citations and abstracts from theses submitted from 1919 onwards.

If you’re interested in a thesis that isn't available online, you can request the item through our Resource Sharing Service .

International theses

For theses written and submitted at universities outside of Australia, try the following resources:

• Open Access Theses and Dissertations
• DART-Europe E-theses Portal
• British Library Electronic Digital Thesis Online Service (EThOS)
• EBSCO open dissertations
• French Thesis-On-Line Repository
• History Online – postgraduate theses in History submitted in the UK since 1995
• Index to Theses – listing of theses with abstracts accepted for higher degrees by universities in Great Britain and Ireland since 1716
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations – North American theses
• ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global

Related information

For more help finding and accessing theses, speak to our friendly library staff.

How to find PhD theses?

Dutch theses: full-text online, dutch theses: print edition, bibliographies dutch theses 1924-1986, international theses.

Dutch theses can be found in UvA-DARE (UvA) and Netherlands Research Portal  (all Dutch universities).

To find theses in print editions, search CataloguePlus or WorldCat Discovery .

The following reference works list older Dutch theses:  Catalogus van academische geschriften in Nederland en Nederlandsch Indië verschenen (1924-1945),  Catalogus van academische geschriften in Nederland verschenen (1952-1979), and Bibliografie van Nederlandse proefschriften (1980-1990).

Full-text theses may be downloaded from:

• Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD) : PhD and Master theses worldwide
• OAIster , part of Worldcat: open access academic publications worldwide. If need be, refine results by Format:  Thesis/Dissertation.
• DART-Europe : theses from 28 European countries

More databases with dissertations:

• Registry of Open Access Repositories : select a country and select from the pulldown menu: Any Repository Type for e-Theses.
• Open DOAR  (Directory of Open Access Repositories): click Search for repositories, select from the pulldown menu Any Content Type for Theses and select a country.

A number of subject-specific databases  contain the data of dissertations. Each database has specific descriptors, publication types and options to limit the search results. In Sociological Abstracts, for example, you can limit to Publication Type Dissertations & Theses. If you find an interesting reference, the thesis may be full-text available through one of the resources mentioned above. If this is not the case, you might try ordering it from  Dissertation Express .

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PhD Exam and Thesis Info for Final Semester

Information for completing your degree can be found at completing your degree    (see also completing degree requirements in the graduate school handbook.), please also review on the graduate school's web site  final semester procedures, please contact the physics graduate studies office (prof. jon pelz, kris dunlap, crystal moloney) with any questions., timeline for finishing phd.

When       

Who and What to do

Before final semester

Student: Check your earned credit hours and verify that you will have 80 credit hours when you complete your final semester.  Discuss with Advisor when to schedule PhD exam. You must be enrolled for the term you will finish your degree.

Faculty Advisor: Discuss with student expectations for written thesis (eg., scope) and any possible ODS accommodations.

Before start of term and no later than 2nd Friday after a term starts  see graduation calendar:

Student: Submit " Application to Graduate" on gradforms.osu.edu

Faculty Advisor: Approve "Application to Graduate" form to approve student's intent to schedule oral exam and submit thesis before end of the term.

Graduate Studies Office: Review degree requirements and approve "Application to Graduate" form.

First Week of Term

Student: Set and confirm PhD Oral Exam date with advisor and your other 3 committee members.

Check Graduate School's Graduation Calendar for mid semester deadlines for scheduling defense to participate in graduation for the current term.

Student:   Please check the Graduate School's graduation calendar to know the defense due date for the current term if you are planning to participate in the current semester's graduation. For Autumn it is in the 14th week around November 22nd, just before Thanksgiving. Spring it is in the 14th week around mid-April. For Summer it is in the 11th week around mid-July.

When you schedule your defense AFTER the mid semester deadlines, you will automatically roll over to the End of Semester option for graduation processing during the NEXT term and your degree is conferred at next semester's graduation. 

At least 3 weeks before date of PhD Oral Exam

Student:  Schedule room in Physics Research Building and submit  “Application for Final Exam”  form on gradforms.osu.edu to officially register with the Graduate School to schedule the date of your PhD Oral Exam.

Send advisor and committee members your thesis draft.

Faculty Advisor and Committee members:  Approve  “Application for Final Exam”  form   via gradforms.osu.edu no later than 14 days before exam date.  Read thesis draft before date of examination.

No later than 14 days before PhD Oral Exam date

Student:  Monitor your approvals for your  “Application for Final Exam”  form on gradforms.osu.edu on the history tab. Status Pending means department approvals needed.  Pending-GS means all department approvals received and pending Graduate School approval. Pending GS will be the status on your form until a few days before your oral defense date.  Contact Kris Dunlap or Crystal Moloney for assistance in reserving a large conference room in Physics Research Building. The exam location will be needed to complete the  "Application for Final Exam"  form.

Faculty Advisor and Committee members: Approve “Application for Final Exam” form via gradforms.osu.edu no later than 14 days before exam date.

Student:  undergo dissertation format check by/at the Graduate School. See    https://gradsch.osu.edu/format-review-and-submission  for more information.  Starting November 2020, students will need to send an e-mail, including their full name and University ID number, to  [email protected]  to request the format check. The Graduate School will respond by sending the student a link via which they may upload their document for review.

Approximately 7 days before PhD Oral Exam date

Student: Per email from Graduate School Graduation Services office, deliver copy of dissertation to Graduate Faculty Representative.

Student: Check logistics of exam including room, projector, *zoom or other video application for any members participating remotely.  * (See PDF for using Zoom for oral defense.)

Day of PhD Oral Exam

Student:  Deliver your defense. (Total exam period including deliberation by committee is at most 2 hours.)

Faculty Advisor and Committee members:  Within 24 hours, record approval on gradforms.osu.edu "Report on Final Examination" form

Day After PhD Oral Exam

Before deadline to submit final dissertation (link to calendar TBD)

Student:  Create new registrion for  Ohio Link here .  You must use your name.#@buckeyemail.osu.edu as your email address as no other email will work.  After receiving a password via email, you can reset your password and log in to your account. 

Advisor : Review final written thesis and enter approval on  "Report on Written Report"  form on gradforms.osu.edu.

Deadline 8 AM for last business day of current semester graduation OR the End of Semester (EOS) option.  (see calendar above)

Student:   To upload your thesis on  OhioLink  according to the associated deadlines for current semester graduation or End of Semester (EOS) options, from their right menu select Electronic Thesis Dissertation Center (ETD) and you lang on their search page for dissertaions. At the top right of the page, click "Submit your Thesis or Dissertation" text and then "Go to ETD Submission Site" link on that page and that finally takes you to the login page.    Please note that multiple parts, such as the abstract, must be uploaded individually and checked for formatting. Also, you must enter your committee names, key words for search results, and select information about copyright and publication which will take 15-45 min if you check all your information.

After you complete you complete your Oral Exam and submit your final thesis, the Physics Graduate Studies Program Coordinator will submit your termination in Workday.  

Student:   After you complete your defense and your final written thesis submission the Physics Graduate Studies Program Coordinator will submit your termination in Workday. You will receive a full paycheck for December on 12/31, 1/2 a paycheck for May posted on May 31 if finish in the Spring, and 1/2 a paycheck for August if finish in Summer term.  No steps need to be taken by you other than ensuring your final payment is received.  

If transferring to Post Doc or Research Staff position at OSU, your transfer process must start 6 Weeks before the start of the next term.

International students on F1 visas should contact & check website for Office of International Affairs (OIA)  about filing for your OPT. OPT processing can take up to 3 months. 

• Guidelines for Written Thesis
• Guidelines for Oral Exam

Guidelines for written thesis:

        Formatting guidelines:  See  https://gradsch.osu.edu/format-review-and-submission for more information.  Starting November 2020, students will need to send an e-mail, including their full name and University ID number, to  [email protected]  to request the format check. The Graduate School will respond by sending the student a link via which they may upload their document for review.

        Thesis content/structure: Student should discuss scope of thesis in advance with advisor and possibly the advisory committee. Thesis is on your original work but the scope may reflect norms in the subfield of physics and/or special details for individual research groups. 

        3 weeks before Exam:  Send the draft of your written thesis to your advisor and committee.  This draft should include the entire chapters of your thesis but could be missing some final edits, formatting or final figures. 

        After Oral Exam:  Make revisions to written thesis as specified by committee and submit to advisor for final approval. 

        Upload final thesis to OhioLink:    See last the 2nd to last row in table above

Guidelines for oral exam (including the public portion vs. committee & student only):

          Logistics of exam:   Contact Kris Dunlap or Crystal Moloney for assistance in reserving a large conference room in the Physics Research Building. The exam location will be needed to complete the "Application for Final Exam" form. Room should include an accessible chalk or white board & you should plan to bring your own chalk or white board markers and eraser. Room should include accessible electrical outlets for laptop and projector.  If your research group does not have a projector, you can reserve one from the Physics Front Desk.  See below for Zoom or other video conference technology for exam. Plan for exam to last 2 hours and request to book your room for a 1/2 hour before your exam start time to allow for set up.

• If the written or oral exam must be postponed for any reason OR if there is a change of committee member due to an emergency,  the student MUST NOT start the exam until he/she/they has filed a  "Committee and Examination Petition" form  on  gradforms.osu.edu . BEFORE starting the oral exam . this form needs immediate online approval by the  Advisor and a member of the Physics Graduate Studies office before the form will reach the Graduate School for their final approval.  The   Graduate School’s Office of Graduation Services will update the  “Report on Final Examination” and the "Report on Final Document" forms in order to change out the faculty member's name to allow the exam to be valid. Please also contact the Physics Graduate Studies office to alert them of the issue so that they can facilitate the petition to notify the Graduate School that one is pending their immediate review .  Usually the exam can proceed within 5 to 10 minutes of the notification to the Graduate School so the delay is usually minimal.

           Public part of the exam:   The public portion shall be at most 45 minutes, during which the candidate makes an oral presentation, typically using slides shared from his/her computer. Per Physics custom, questions by the committee during the presentation are allowed, and questions by guests are allowed at the discretion of the committee.  At the end of the presentation or by the 45-minute mark, whichever is earlier, all guests will be dismissed and the closed portion of the exam will continue.

          Closed part of the exam:   Committee members are each guaranteed roughly 15 minutes for questions during the private portion, but they can defer some of their time to other committee members. Per Physics custom, any committee member can follow up on questions initiated by another member.  

          Zoom based exam:  See current Graduate School guidelines for details of how video conferencing is allowed. The following amendments of the above guidelines apply for Zoom exams.

• Committee members should identify and iterate logistical questions or special issues by email and/or zoom in advance of the exam.
• Exam should be completed in two hours unless there are technical problems (e.g., zoom or internet goes out for one or more committee members for a few minutes), in which case it can be extended within reason (up to 30-45 minutes).
• The exam shall be conducted by CarmenZoom. The committee chair (usually the main advisor) is responsible for setting up and hosting the zoom meeting. The time allocated should begin at least 15 minutes before the start of the exam and allow 3 hours in total duration in case of delays. (The start may be 30 minutes before the exam because scheduledmeeting start times for CarmenZoom are spaced at 30-minute intervals unless adjusted by hand.)
• The candidate should connect to the zoom meeting and try out screen sharing at least 15 minutes before the start of the exam. The committee should join 5-10 minutes in advance to allow for introductions and to try out zoom logistics.  
• For the public portion a zoom link will be sent in advance to invited guests (the link should not be generally broadcast).  At the end of the presentation or by the 45-minute mark, whichever is earlier, all guests will be dismissed (the host must ensure they have exited) and the closed portion of the exam will continue.
• A whiteboard can be shared on zoom (it is an option when you share your screen and works with a mouse or your finder on a touchpad) if needed to answer questions. Another solution that allows the candidate to write answers is to connect to the zoom meeting independently with a cellphone using the Zoom app and propping the phone so the camera shows a piece of paper for writing equations or drawing pictures. Whatever solution is used, it should be tested in advance of the defense.
• During the committee deliberation the candidate must exit from the exam or be sent to a Zoom breakout room but should remain in contact by email or messaging so he/she can rejoin the exam at short notice.

Four UW–Madison students receive Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowships

Four UW–Madison students have been awarded fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and the Mellon Foundation to support their innovative and creative dissertation research.

The Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowships support doctoral students in the humanities and social sciences with up to $50,000 including funds for research, training, professional development, and mentorship. The four fellows at UW–Madison are among 45 overall, selected from a pool of more than 700 applicants. They are:

• Kuhelika Ghosh , doctoral candidate in English with a minor in Culture, History, and Environment
• Fauzi Moro , doctoral student in History with a minor in African Cultural Studies
• Anika M. Rice , doctoral student in Geography with a minor in Community-Engaged Scholarship
• Vignesh Ramachandran , doctoral student in Geography

Read more about each Mellon/ACLS Fellow below.

Kuhelika Ghosh

Ghosh’s dissertation explores multispecies gardens in Anglophone Caribbean literature and culture from the 1960s to the present, bringing together postcolonial studies and ecocritical approaches.

“I am interested in the ways that Afro-diasporic women’s gardening practices in the Caribbean region often engage with nonhuman rhythms relating to seasonal time, harvest and fallow, and the lives of insects, birds, and other species,” she said.

Through this work, Ghosh demonstrates how human gardening practices and the rhythms of many different species found in gardens of various types relate to postcolonial food politics and responses to empire. Ghosh explained that the original kitchen and market gardens began during plantation slavery as provisions grounds, which were plots of land set apart from plantations for enslaved people to grow their own food.

The project uses literary texts, visual culture, little-studied archival materials, and physical gardens to create new theories about key problems in cultural study, including voice, rhythm, and spatiality. Ghosh takes an interdisciplinary approach that crosses through literary studies, environmental studies, history, and visual cultures, which gives her dissertation the boundary-pushing trait the Mellon/ACLS fellowship seeks to encourage.

“By focusing on small-scale cultivation, women’s care work, and ‘inconsequential’ multispecies creatures, my project sheds light on the many minor figures in the postcolonial Caribbean that have the power to create change in food justice movements,” Ghosh said.

She also said agricultural scholarship tends to be biased toward men’s labor, while women make up a significant portion of the agricultural labor force in the Caribbean – especially through domestic spaces like backyard gardens. She seeks to highlight Caribbean women’s perspectives and voices around the topics of food justice and postcolonial politics.

“I hope my research brings to light the importance of gardens as a feminist practice, postcolonial agricultural strategy, as well as a form of art in itself,” Ghosh said. “Gardens are often seen as ‘minor’ in the field of the environmental humanities, but my dissertation attempts to demonstrate that although a garden may be minor in terms of area, it has political, ecological, and social significances for marginalized populations in the Caribbean as well as in other postcolonial spaces around the globe.”

Fauziyatu Moro (Fauzi)

Three miles north of Accra’s central business district, the city’s largest migrant enclave, Nima, houses migrants from various African countries. Moro explained that in the nine decades of Nima’s existence, its residents have embodied a distinct Afro-cosmopolitan identity that has thus far gone unnoticed by scholars of African urban history, migration, and the African diaspora.

Moro’s dissertation and an open-access digital archive emerging from her work theorizes Nima as an internal African diaspora and an unprecedented site of pan-African consciousness. This is facilitated by migrants’ urban leisure which speaks to an ethos of global Black solidarity, Moro said.

“By centering intra-Africa migrants’ social imaginations and amusements in the making of Accra’s pan-African and transnational history, my dissertation offers a glimpse into the possibilities of researching migration and urbanization in Africa through the category of leisure as opposed to migrant labor,” Moro said. This challenges scholars to reassess assumptions about working-class intra-Africa migrants, while introducing ideas about migrants’ roles as key historical actors in creating and socially transforming African urban spaces, she added.

Moro’s project centers on migrants’ narratives, social imaginations, and visual and material culture, creating a retelling of the history of Accra. This is underscored by multi-disciplinary methods including oral sources, state and migrants’ personal archives, print media, and literary and visual analysis.

“Migrants’ oral histories and personal archives are particularly crucial to my methodology because they anchor the counter-narrative I seek to provide about Accra’s intra-Africa migrants whose lives and experiences often come to us through the skewed lens of crime, poverty and/or chaos. My research is, thus, undergirded by a quest to make visible the histories of Africa’s urban migrants as told in their own voices,” Moro said.

Anika M. Rice

“In this context, how families leverage landholdings for migration is central to livelihoods, agrarian change, debt, and situated meanings of land,” Rice said.

Land access is often left out of discussions about the root causes of migration in Central America, Rice explained. Her research provides a grounding point that takes seriously the role of land access and how land is used in the decisions that families make about migration.

Rice will collaborate with groups of predominantly Maya K’iche’ women with migrant family members who seek to understand possibilities for collective resistance against the structural and institutional impacts of migration. These groups are part of the Jesuit Migration Network‘s programming in Guatemala.

“I intend for my research to center the agency of K’iche’ women and other marginalized folks in communities of origin, and affirm the right to migrate with dignity,” she said.

Rice said that while there has been important work on transnational migration in host and transit countries, as well as on the intersections of migration and agrarian change, there is limited attention to the gendered impacts of migration in communities of origin and how migration is tied to land access. Her dissertation will use community-based research approaches to engage with the experiences of women with migrant family members, showing their strategies for survival and persistence.

Previous scholarship has often focused on the head of household and on remittances sent home from migrants. Rice’s methods will integrate household surveys with ethnographic work that engages with how multiple family members in different social positions relate to and may leverage specific parcels of land for migration.

“Elevating voices from communities of origin, with a focus on how women are organizing, is central to the co-production of knowledge on social relations, mobility and the environment,” Rice said.

Vignesh Ramachandran

Scientific management, also known as Taylorism, focuses on economic efficiency and labor productivity. Ramachandran’s research focuses on how digital Taylorism – such as automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and algorithm-based management practices – affects delivery workers. Ramachandran uses a worker’s inquiry methodology that emphasizes collaborative, action-oriented research conducted alongside workers to document the effects of digital Taylorism.

“Through this methodology, this project outlines the racializing and disciplining effects of algorithms in shaping the lives of immigrant delivery workers,” Ramachandran said. “In doing so, it also hopes to discover how digital Taylorism produces residual after-effects, like solidarity and care, that propose other modes of social life under the managerial control of algorithms and digital technology.”

Innovations in automation and AI are constantly changing the terrain of labor and work, Ramachandran said. Many of those innovations are implemented in the gig economy and push workers to work harder and faster, while corporations increase their profits, he said. His dissertation challenges “disembodied” descriptions of technological innovation by centering perspectives of immigrant delivery workers.

“Many working class immigrants in New York City have been doubly subjected to the effects of imperialism—faced with austerity, militarism, and climate crisis in their home countries, and border violence, policing, and structural poverty in the U.S.,” Ramachandran said. “In this context, my research challenges race-neutral accounts of the gig economy by situating exploitation in the gig economy within the long [duration] of racial capitalism and imperialism, and by documenting stories of immigrant worker resistance amidst this violence.”

Ramachandran said his approach to dissertation research “re-introduces the workers’ inquiry as an innovative form of collaborative research that academics can undertake with workers.”

“Whereas companies like Uber, Grubhub, and Doordash spend millions on research and development to maximize profit in the gig economy, the workers’ inquiry turns to the experiences and situated knowledge of workers to document and contest exploitation in their workplace,” he explained. “In this case, this project builds on over two years of community-engaged research with undocumented South Asian delivery workers and community organizations to understand how resistance to exploitation in the gig economy takes place at the intersection of digital technology, labor, and everyday immigrant life. Moreover, the project develops the importance of collaborative, community engaged methodologies in the broader humanities and social sciences.”

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Adelaide Graduate Research School

2024 Visualise Your Thesis Competition

Registrations are now open for the 2024 Visualise Your Thesis competition. HDRs are challenged to present their research in a sixty second visual display. First prize wins $1000 and will go on to compete in the International online competition. All successful submissions also qualify for 5 CaRST points.

To register your interest, visit the Visualise Your Thesis webpage  before 7 July. 

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