Happy Tuesday, Grad Pod listeners! Welcome to another episode of Grad Pod! Graduation is just around the corner, and for many graduate students, that means finalizing their thesis or dissertation is around the corner! But how do you navigate the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) process without last-minute stress?
In this episode, we sit down with Sarah Steele and Adam Mansfield from VCU’s Graduate Enrollment Services to break down everything you need to know—deadlines, submission steps, and common pitfalls to avoid.
HAYA: As graduation approaches for graduate students who will be finalizing their dissertations and thesis, things are getting real! This vital step towards graduation can be a little confusing to navigate at times, but it must be done correctly!
Why you might ask electronic theses and dissertations make VCU student research and creativity available online as full text documents and multimedia presentations for use by the university community as well as others involved in research.
By making these works available online as full text documents and multimedia presentations, they serve as valuable resources for the university, community, researchers, and even the public.
Welcome to the Grad Pod. I'm Haya, and today we're diving into an essential topic for any student in the final stages of their graduate journey: understanding the ETD process.
While I'm not an expert in this area, I've got two fantastic guests here today to break down the ETD process, answer all your questions, and help ensure you are ready for graduation without any last minute stress.
My guests today represent the graduate enrollment services team at the graduate school.
Sarah Steele is the coordinator of graduate enrollment services and Adam Mansfield is the graduate enrollment services specialist.
Sarah and Adam, Welcome to the Grad Pod!
ADAM: Hey everybody. I'm Adam Mansfield. Um, I actually went to VCU, I got my Bachelor's in English and my Master's in teaching, taught for a few years, and then came back to work at VCU with the graduate school.
I'm pretty new to the process, so I'm trying to learn a little bit more. Today we're trying to talk about the ETD process, so I'm gonna ask Sarah, who's here with me, what does ETD actually stand for?
SARAH: Yes. Uh, ETD stands for electronic thesis and dissertation, and this is a process that applies to all masters and Ph.D. students at VCU.
It's part of their graduation requirements. There are graduate students who do not need it. For example, students in the Ed.D. program or any Master's student that does not write a thesis, the Graduate School oversees this process and the deadline is at the end of each semester for the students who will be submitting their thesis and dissertations.
Typically, that's just before commencement. For that semester. This semester, for example, in spring 2025, the ETD deadline to submit all of a student's materials will be Friday, May 9th.
ADAM: Speaking of deadlines, is there anything I should know about when to defend?
SARAH: Yes. First and foremost, I always tell students.
Make sure to check with your program for any internal deadlines that they may have regarding the submission of your thesis or dissertation.
Also, in addition to the ETD submission deadline, every semester, there is an ETD defense deadline. The Graduate School strongly encourages all students to defend their thesis or dissertation.
Each semester, two weeks before the ETD submission deadline. So this semester it'll be in late April, so two weeks before May 9th, and you can always check the academic calendar for both deadlines each semester. And we do this in the hopes that students will have enough time to implement the feedback and the edits from their committee after they defend.
And so we try to give that two week cushion that they have to implement those edits and then submit all their materials for the ETD deadline in the hopes that they won't have to ask for an extension. We really want to reduce the stress. For the students, first and foremost, but for all the faculty and staff involved in the process and try to make things as smooth as possible.
ADAM: So after the defense, what does a student need to do to complete the ETD requirement?
SARAH: So, once a student has defended their thesis or dissertation. They need to initiate the ETD form. This is a DocuSign form found on the Graduate School website under our current student's tab. I'll talk to you a little bit more in a moment about filling it out.
They also need to upload the final version of their thesis or dissertation to Scholars Compass, which is the online repository for all final papers, including thesis and dissertations at the university.
Lastly, if they're a doctoral student, they will need to fill out and submit what's called the Survey of Earned Doctorates.
Every month I send a newsletter from Graduate Enrollment Services to all graduate faculty and staff at, the university, in every month. It includes information about the ETD deadline, as well as a link to the checklist with these three materials listed on them, that the faculty and staff can then send out to the students.
This checklist can also be found on the ETD page, on the Graduate School website, and that is where the link to the survey of earned doctorates lives, as well as the link to the ETD form and the link to Scholars Compass.
Now, one of the differences is when submitting materials, ss I mentioned earlier, Master's students do not need to submit the survey of earned doctorates.That's only for the Ph.D. students. Ed.D. students also do not have to submit this survey when they're turning in their captions.
Now, when you're filling out the ETD form, this is a DocuSign form, and on the page there is. A PDF of instructions on how to fill it out. So I would encourage all students to look at that first to make sure that you're filling it out correctly, and it has all of the information that we require.
It's going to ask you for things such as your name, your program, school V number, the title of your thesis or dissertation, and for you to sign it, you'll also have to list all of the people who are signing off.
To approve your ETD, this will include your graduate program director, all of your committee members, including your committee chair, your advisor, as well as the dean designee for your school or college.
Make sure to pay special attention to the ETD page because that is where we keep an updated list of all of the Dean designees emails for each school and college. This will usually be the associate dean over graduate education for your school or college, or a common email.
You'll also need to put in the Graduate School Dean's email, which is a general email account that we have and is also listed on the ETD page. Once you have initiated the form, it'll go to each person to sign in the order that you listed them before finally coming to the Graduate School for our review.
After you submit. The ETD form, you should then upload the final version of your thesis or dissertation. When it is ready, I do wanna stress it is okay to initiate the form before you have submitted the final version of your dissertation or thesis to scholars at Compass. The Graduate School will not review your ETD materials until we have all of them.
It's okay if we receive any other materials first. If you're a doctoral student and you just wanna go ahead and get your survey outta the way, you can go ahead and fill that that out, and we will get it If your final version of your thesis or dissertation is ready for you to upload to Scholar's Compass before everyone has finished filling out your ETD form.
It is perfectly fine to upload to Scholars Compass before the form has finished moving through DocuSign and gotten to the graduate school. However, it is important that we receive all of your materials by 5:00 PM on the day of the deadline for ETD materials submission, which again, that's Friday, May 9th for this semester.
Also because of the volume of ETDs that our office gets at the end of each semester, it is okay if that requirement in our review of your ETD has not been completed by 5:00 PM on the day of material submission, we will be processing into the next week as long as you submitted everything by the day of the deadline, that is completely fine.
And lastly, I wanna come back to the ETD checklist. Again, if your program or school does not forward it to you, you can always find it on the ETD website (tab) under the current students tab on the graduate school website, and that will include the link to everything you need, including the survey of earned doctorates if you are a doctoral student also.
I wanna mention if you make any mistakes filling out your ETD form, or if you are worried that you've uploaded an incorrect version of your thesis or dissertation to Scholars Compass, please feel free to contact me and I will help to correct whatever situation. We're always happy to work with you in graduate enrollment services.
ADAM: So on the note of contact, and thank you again for that explanation, Sarah, who, who do I contact with questions about the ETD process as a whole? Not just if I make a mistake, but if I'm confused or stressed or trying to figure out what I need to do, what should I do? Who do I reach out to?
SARAH: Good question.
Well, you can contact me directly. My email is steelese2@vcu.edu. That's S-T-E-E-L-E-S-E, the number 2 @vcu.edu. You can also contact gradstudent@vcu.edu for with any questions about the ETD process or graduate enrollment services in general. I also encourage you to look on the ETD page on the Graduate School website.
It is where we not only house our checklist and the link to the ETD DocuSign form, but also a lot of other links that students have found helpful, like the ETD manual, which gives you a guide of what to include and what sort of formatting to use and. A template to give you an example of what a thesis or dissertation could look like and how it could be formatted and organized.
Also, while we are always happy to take your questions about the ETD process, please again, I want to stress that you also contact your school, college, or program about. Any specific internal deadlines or specific guidelines they may have about the formatting or organization of your thesis or dissertations.
HAYA: Awesome. Thank you, Sarah and Adam!. This has been incredibly resourceful and helpful to our students, especially those who might not be aware about this process and all the nitty gritty things that go into it. So, thank you one more time!
CREDITS:
Grad Pod is produced by VCU's Graduate School. Haya Hamid is our host. Our producer and editor is Grace Albritton. Our theme music was composed, performed, and recorded by Austin Sellek and Claudia Andrade, students of Felipe Leitao, assistant Professor of Composition and Sound Design at VCU School of the Arts.
Do you have a question for us? Email us at grad school@vcu.edu and we may answer your question on an episode!
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