Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) at NC State University

In Spring 1997, the NCSU Libraries, the Graduate School and the Information Technology division collaborated on a pilot project that allowed theses and dissertations to be submitted, approved and accessed electronically. The local effort was part of a larger project sponsored by the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) and prototyped by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) to create a digital thesis and dissertation repository.

The interest in the ETD (Electronic Theses and Dissertations) Initiative was overwhelming, and beginning Fall 2002 the University required electronic submission of all theses and dissertations.

Using software developed by Virginia Tech, students submit their works to the Graduate School as Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Once reviewed and approved, they are transmitted to the Libraries for cataloging and then accessed via the Libraries' Web server.