Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

Fall 9-16-2022

Abstract

One of the most important products from university graduate programs is highly qualified professionals. Ultimately, student success is one measure of a university’s academic quality. But another measure of academic quality is the institution’s online continuous display of ETDs. This display is a public picture of content and style representing the students and their university. Thus, ETD administrators are tasked not only with the format reviews but also the continuous improvements in all aspects of the ETD workflow to ensure the integrity of their institutions’ public-facing ETDs.

To facilitate the plenary discussion about ETD formatting and reviewing for differentsized institutions at the USETDA Conference, each chapter of this manuscript, except for one, provides a brief ETD administrator sketch of their university ETD formatting and review process that produces varying numbers of ETDs per year. The additional chapter, provided by the Overleaf panelist, describes how the Overleaf free tool-set can support the ETD formatting and review process.

This information along with a Q & C survey (Questions and Comments) is available to all USETDA conference registrants prior to the conference for their questions and comments. Asking questions or providing as many comments as possible prior to the panel discussion will help to make this program a successful event.

We invite you to consider the following questions and thoughts as you review the information:

• Is ETD capacity tied to ETD process management, or is it only tied to the human financial support of these programs?

• Does your university consider its ETD formatting and review process to be an asset or a liability?

• How is your ETD program organized?

• How well is your review process working?

• Do you have enough support relative to reviews and reviewers to produce high quality and reader functional digital manuscripts?

• How do the campus-wide stakeholders coordinate their efforts to assist students and faculty with ETD creation, formatting, and review?

• Does your university invest in innovative ETDs?

• Is the quantity of ETDs produced inversely proportional to quality?

• What criteria should we consider in efforts to improve styles (formatting) and reader functions?

• What role should ETD administrators play in improving the universities’ ETD products?

Collecting ETD formatting and reviewing information allows administrators and institutional ETD stakeholders to examine different university methods, and question, comment, or make suggestions. By actively participating in this panel discussion, we hope you will be better equipped to provide constructive advice with documented examples to your own stakeholders and for your own ETD programs.

This manuscript will be expanded after the 2022 USETDA conference to integrate gaps brought up during the plenary discussion. Subsequently, each of the initial chapters in this manuscript will be finalized as the first version of this e-book to recognize the original authors’ contributions. It is our intention that this e-book will be presented as an open project. After the first version has been published, we invite ETD administrators and universities to participate in this project by submitting a chapter about their own practices. This e-book will be constantly evolving as contributions are accepted and authors’ updates are provided annually.

Conference Dates and Location

September 21-23, 2022. Cleveland, Ohio.

Sponsoring Organization

United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association

Conference Name

12th Annual Conference on Electronic Theses and Dissertations

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