Date: 5 April 2022
All students who prepare a thesis in partial fulfillment for a graduate degree (including but not limited to PhD, MS, MA, MFA, MLA, MProS) must submit a digital copy of their approved thesis or dissertation, complete with committee signatures, to the Tulane University Libraries Theses and Dissertations Archive and ProQuest. Electronic signatures are acceptable. The Tulane University Libraries will no longer accept or retain a hard copy. Paper copies already in the Archive, if unprocessed, may be withdrawn. Failure to submit a digital copy by the official date of certification for degree (as established by the Registrar’s Office) may result in delay of degree conferral.
Students may place a 6 or 12-month embargo on their thesis or dissertation when uploading. Students or advisors who believe the thesis or dissertation may include patentable work should also contact the Office of Technology Transfer for guidance. Schools or programs may impose additional thesis or dissertation archiving requirements. Depositors should ensure that all copies are identical, as the version deposited with Tulane University Libraries Theses and Dissertations Archive will be considered the official version for the degree.
The Tulane University Theses & Dissertations Archive is Tulane University's platform for submitting and providing access to master's theses and doctoral dissertations completed as part of university graduate degree requirements. Selective digital holdings begin in 1957. Currently, the Archive provides access to over 6,000 unique records, of which over 1660 records include digital full text; the remaining are retrospective metadata-only records that link to the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global database.
Graduating students self-submit a signed PDF of their thesis or dissertation via an online form where they also input their own descriptive metadata. Tulane University Libraries staff will review each submission for completeness and accuracy, ensure compliance with an established file naming convention, and confirm successful publication (or incomplete status) via email from digital@tulane.edu. Students will share with their advisor the email confirmation as verification of completion of this required task for graduation.
Tulane University Libraries ensures the digital preservation of archival copies of the associated digital objects, principally in PDF, via storage in the Tulane IT Data Center. This dedicated archive, known as the Repo Archive, also houses the digital preservation masters for the Tulane University Digital Library. The Repo Archive is backed up daily. Both the Tulane University Digital Library and the Theses & Dissertations Archive are also backed up daily by Tulane Information Technology on redundant campus servers.
