Graduate Student Research

All graduate students are strongly encouraged to complete Responsible Conduct of Research Training (RCR):

The University of Alaska Anchorage promotes Responsible Conduct of Research enforcing high standards of ethics and accountability in planning, implementation, behavior and information dissemination. UAA provides a CITI Course in the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR), a comprehensive basic course in RCR for all UAA faculty, staff, research administrators, and students involved in any aspect of research. 

All graduate students planning on completing a thesis or dissertation to meet degree requirements are required to complete the Thesis/Dissertation Topic and Research Compliance Form (RCIP) along with their Committee Form. FYI, some graduate students are planning research that will lead to intellectual property with commercial potential which is covered under the RCIP Form. At the same time, all graduate students are expected to respect the copyright, license and intellectual property rights that may attach to files of any media type, including software, texts, databases, images, video, music and other audio files, especially when using university computing and/or networking resources. For further information, contact the UAA Research Compliance Office or the associate vice provost for Research Administration and Commercialization.

• Documents Required: Thesis/Dissertation Topic and Research Compliance Form 
                                        Committee Form

Defense of Thesis or Dissertation

Graduate students completing a thesis or dissertation in fulfillment of degree requirements are required to pass an oral defense of your work. Defense dates must be submitted to the Graduate School and publicly posted one week before the defense. The defense will consist of a presentation followed by questions on the research, analysis and written thesis presentation. All committee members must be present at the thesis/dissertation defense. A Report on Thesis/Dissertation Defense must be submitted to the Graduate School indicating date of completion, and approved by the graduate advisor and committee, program chair, college dean, and the Graduate School.

• Document Required: Report of Thesis/Dissertation Defense

Thesis Review

All members of a student’s graduate committee, department/program chair, the college dean, and the Graduate School dean must approve the thesis or dissertation as required by the student’s graduate program. Changes or corrections to the thesis may be required at any of these levels. 

The student should check with their program for required formatting, as determined by their discipline. Ideally, formatting checks should be made before and after the defense of the project. 

The graduate committee is responsible for project evaluation, grammar, punctuation, usage, and formatting. The committee chair approves thesis content, grammar, readability, formatting to discipline-specific guidelines, but the department chair/director, and college dean also conduct reviews to monitor the quality of work and check for any overlooked errors.

The college or Graduate School dean renders final approval after the committee’s and department chair/director’s approval and once all required corrections are made.

A copy of the signed and completed Thesis/Dissertation Approval Form is forwarded to the Graduate School. Once approved by the Graduate School Dean, the Thesis/Dissertation requirement in Banner and the student’s DegreeWorks Graduate Studies Plan (GSP) will be noted as having a been met to partially meet degree requirements.           

• Document Required: Thesis/Dissertation Approval Form

Formatting the Thesis or Dissertation:

• All theses must comply with the formatting guidelines of the student's discipline as advised by the committee chair.  If the discipline does NOT have an established journal or professional guidelines, then students may use the Thesis Formatting Handbook. 
• It is important to avoid using prior theses or dissertations as the definitive formatting guide since they will likely be out of date. 
• All thesis cover pages must comply with the templates below. The examples below are templates and not to be used as the actual page.
  • Title Page: Master's Thesis
  • Title Page: Doctoral Dissertation
• Thesis Formatting Checklist (For students who do NOT have professional or journal guidelines)
• Guidelines for the Preparation of Thesis or Dissertation Preliminary Pages

Flow Chart of Thesis Review and Submission

To illustrate the process of submitting the thesis and its review process, a flow chart was designed to exemplify each step.  As always, please email the Graduate School at any time for clarification.

Graduate School Thesis Submission Deadlines

Please consult your college dean's office for their thesis submission deadlines for each semester to allow adequate time for their review prior to submission to the Graduate School Dean.  Deans must have sufficient time to read the thesis and return them to students for final submission to the Office of the Graduate School. 

Title Page Review Deadlines:

Fall Graduation:         December 1 (no extensions permitted)

Spring Graduation:    April 10 

Summer Graduation: July 10

When the deadline falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the deadline moves accordingly:

• Fall semester - the preceding Friday
• Spring semester - the subsequent Monday
• Summer semester - the subsequent Monday 

All theses must be approved by the committee and department chair/director , and college dean or their designate, before submission to the Graduate School. Please check with your program and college for their deadlines for the current semester. 

Thesis Deadline for Submission to the Graduate School:

Thesis Approval Forms must be signed by the college dean by the Friday before grades are due. The same day is the deadline for approved thesis to be uploaded to ETD.

ProQuest Electronic Thesis Submission (ETD)

You must submit and upload your thesis electronically at ProQuest after your college dean has signed the Approval Form. The Graduate School will conduct the final review from ETD. Please submit your title in Title Case Caps, NOT ALL CAPS, or Sentence caps. 

Steps for Uploading to Electronic Thesis/Dissertation (ETD):

1. Enter website at http://www.etadmin.com/. The ETD web page is titled: "Make your thesis or dissertation available to the research community with ProQuest ETD Administrator".
2. Click on submit to begin the process of uploading your final thesis and setting up your account on the site. Follow the online instructions. Do NOT use all CAPS for the title of your thesis; please use Title Caps. (Having trouble using Title Case Caps? Capitalize My Title can help.)
3. At this point, you have uploaded your submission and it is ready for its final review. ETD will notify the Graduate School of this event. 
4. The Office of Degree Services is notified by the Graduate School upon approval of the thesis by the Dean of the Graduate School. Degrees are dated and posted immediately by the Office of Degree Services during the semester in which all degree requirements are completed.

Post-Graduation Publication Embargo Extension:

Authors must contact ProQuest customer service to ask that they put on a new embargo or extend an existing one. Customer service can be reached by contacting disspub@proquest.com.

Customer Service will send an email to the author confirming the embargo has been implemented. Customer Service also reminds the author that they will need to request their library to embargo the record in the institutional repository.

Still have questions about uploading to ETD?  ProQuest FAQ's

Doctoral Students: Survey of Earned Doctorates

All doctoral students must complete the Survey of Earned Doctorates and submit the certificate to the Graduate School. 

Publication

Copyright information

Contact the Electronic Copyright Office: eCO.

U.S. Copyright Office  and Frequently Asked Questions about Copyrighting

Bound Copies:

If you would like to order hardcover spiral bound copies of your thesis or dissertation for personal or departmental use, please contact UAA Print Services.  

You may purchase copies of your thesis through the ETD submission process. You may also complete a web search of other sites offering binding services, such as Thesis on Demand or PhD Book Binding. UAA does not specifically endorse any outside publisher. 

Roles of Individuals in the Thesis Process

Graduate Students:

• Research
• Write the thesis
• Comply with required thesis formatting.

Thesis Committee Chair:

• Approve the thesis content, English usage, readability, thesis formatting, and adherence to accepted program publishing standards. The Chair must ensure that theses and dissertations meet the formatting guidelines of the discipline. 
  

Thesis Committee:

• Provide assistance with the content and academic rigor of the research of the thesis 
• Critique the structure of the final product.  

Departmental Staff:

• May provide assistance with questions regarding formatting.  
• Orchestrate submission process through the delivery of the final research product to the Graduate School via DocuSign workflow.