Access Options for Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)
The Graduate School and the Libraries require that all UW theses and dissertations be submitted electronically for management efficiency, cost control, ease of dissemination, and long-term preservation reasons. In addition, your ETD must eventually be made available openly on the web. Your ETD will be hosted in both UW’s institutional repository, ResearchWorks, and in ProQuest’s ETD Database. Consequently, you will need to indicate your choices in two sections about how your ETD is made available. Most students choose to make their work available immediately, but you can choose to limit access temporarily before making it available openly.
Students may restrict access to their theses and dissertations…
- while seeking to publish journal articles or books based on them,
- to protect intellectual property during the patent application process, or
- to prevent the disclosure of sensitive or classified information.
During the submission process, you will select ProQuest and ResearchWorks (Institutional Repository, or IR) publication options. The options are summarized on a table below, followed by selected scenarios to assist you in making your decisions.
IMPORTANT: The metadata describing your ETD, including the citation and abstract, is openly available immediately—regardless of the embargo or restriction status. This information is searchable by Google, Bing and other search engines, so take care that neither the descriptive information nor the text contain confidential or sensitive information.
Selecting Access Options
| If you want to… | Then you need to select… | ||
| In UW ResearchWorks | In ProQuest | ||
| Make available to everyone on the web immediately | “Open Access” | AND | n/a* *ProQuest access is limited to subscribing members. If you choose Open Access through ResearchWorks we recommend you also choose “Immediate Access” through ProQuest. |
| Restrict access to members of the UW community for a defined period | “UW-Only Access” Choose 1, 2, or 5 years, at which point it will become openly available on the web. |
AND | “No Access during Restricted Access Period” Choose 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, or your own specification. Make sure it aligns with your UW-Only restriction period. |
| Restrict access to members of the ProQuest subscription community (includes UW) | “UW-Only Access” Choose 1, 2, or 5 years, at which point it will become openly available on the web. |
AND | “Immediate Access”* *Be aware that the ETD will be openly available on the web through ResearchWorks once the “UW-Only Access” period ends |
| Deny access to anyone (limited to 1 year) | “No Access” Available for 1 year, at which point it will become openly available on the web. |
AND | “No Access during Restricted Access Period” Choose 1 year, to align with ResearchWorks. |