UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Exciting improvements to both the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (eTD) and the Electronic Honors Theses (eHT) systems will be deployed on Monday, May 16. These two services, integral to spreading the word on the research and academic initiatives at Penn State, enables students to electronically submit and share their thesis or dissertation, allowing them to not only meet the requirements of their degree, but gain experience with electronic publishing and expand their research worldwide.
This update will be automatic and no additional actions are needed. Graduate or honors students who have already submitted their drafts, but will not complete the process before the update on May 16, will simply notice the addition of the progress indicator and the new, more intuitive layout of the interface. The update is big news for students.
“Having an honors thesis database helped me troubleshoot problems that arose in my own project,” said Bethany Latten, honors student at the Schreyer Honors College, when describing the eHT system. “To make looking back at previous theses easier—that’d be a lifesaver.”
When discussing the upcoming enhancements, Linda Friend, head of scholarly publishing services for the University Libraries, was excited about the improved security, interface, and in particular, how much easier the process will be for students.
“Penn State was among the first universities in the country to develop a database for dissertations and theses to be submitted digitally,” said Friend, “and the enhanced system creates a positive user experience, making it even more straightforward for students to submit their dissertations and theses and for other researchers to discover their work.”
Administrators will see improvements, too. They will be able to securely collaborate across the system with the added note feature. Enhanced advanced searching now includes a variety of filters, allowing for more specific and targeted search results to help improve efficiency.
The updates are part of a team effort between The Graduate School at Penn State, Schreyer Honors College, the University Libraries, and ITS Services and Solutions. Visit the Penn State Honors Thesis Database and the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Database to view these exciting new changes.
Visit http://sas.psu.edu/academic-and-research-services/ for a full listing of services offered, including thesis templates.