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Institution Dissertations FAQ

Dissertation Home ETD Administrator

Questions about Content

Questions about Preservation

 

Questions about the Submissions Process

Questions about Content 

How long has ProQuest been disseminating and archiving doctoral dissertations and theses?

ProQuest has partnered with academic institutions around the world to archive and disseminate a comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses. The program started in 1939 with the goal to create a U.S. national repository of graduate works. ProQuest now has partnerships with most of the doctoral institutions in the U.S. and Canada and with a significant and growing list of international universities. Each year, ProQuest adds approximately 250,000 new dissertations and theses to its database, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) Global.

How much content is contained in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global?

PQDT Global now offers abstracts and indexing for over 5.5 million dissertations and theses, with full text (PDFs) for over 3 million of those works. Coverage for the database begins in 1637, and full-text coverage is primarily from 1997 forward, although there are hundreds of thousands of dissertations available for pre-1997 works. The database is comprised of dissertations and theses from over 4,100 institutions around the world. All of these graduate works are carefully indexed to enable convenient search and discovery by the scholarly community and researchers of all kinds. ProQuest's suite of dissertation services is accessed by more than 3,100 institutions worldwide. For the exact number of dissertations in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, search for publication year higher than the year 1000.

How much non-U.S. content does ProQuest provide?

ProQuest has been adding non-U.S. content to PQDT Global through extensive and longstanding partnerships with graduate institutions from around the world. PQDT Global now includes dissertations and theses from more than 60 countries. As the scholarly community has become increasingly global, ProQuest has continued to increase its focus on developing partnerships with universities and national associations to archive and disseminate dissertations from around the world. PQDT Global provides access to works from the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, India, and the Asia Pacific regions in addition to comprehensive coverage from the U.S. and Canada. Content growth continues in Russia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America. Nearly 60% of new content added annually is from institutions outside of the U.S.

What is the quality of the dissertation PDFs contained in the database?

Today, most dissertations and theses come to ProQuest as PDFs providing high-quality images. However, for our older pre-digital collections, we strive to maximize the quality of scans based upon current technologies. For example, some older works from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global have been scanned from bi-tonal microfilm images and have reduced quality compared to native PDF. We continuously explore new ways to upgrade our content to meet the changing needs of researchers. For example, in 2014 ProQuest implemented OCR technology to make the full text of older dissertation and thesis PDFs searchable.

How does ProQuest enhance the metadata provided by authors/universities?

ProQuest employs a large team of experienced editors who manually review submissions for completeness and to ensure the accuracy of the metadata. Editors proof and correct the provided metadata to match exactly what appears on the title page and abstract of the graduate work. In addition, the metadata is enriched by adding subjects (from our controlled vocabulary), classification, committee members, and keywords in order to maximize the discoverability of the graduate work. PDFs are converted to XML and references are also extracted and hyperlinked to directly connect the work across multiple research sources. When non-English dissertations and theses are provided, ProQuest provides English translations for the titles and abstracts.

How does ProQuest distribute the content provided for inclusion in PQDT Global?

ProQuest mainly facilitates access to the metadata-enhanced full-text theses and dissertations via its PQDT Global database, which supports 3,100 subscribing universities, with 4 million researchers around the world. That said, ProQuest may also make individual sales of works to those that do not hold a subscription or wish to purchase a printed copy for their library. All individual sales are attributed back to the author and copyright holder of the work in the form of royalty payments. Hardbound/softbound print copies or PDF copies of works may be purchased via a legacy Abstract Index-only product (PQDT AI); through the Dissertations Express iStore, or via an exclusive partnership with CALIS, to facilitate the discovery of international research by Chinese universities. ProQuest also offers all authors discounted pricing on bound copies of their thesis or dissertation, which some choose to make use of, to purchase copies of their works for friends or family.

Questions about Preservation

How does ProQuest preserve dissertations and theses?

All works on PQDT are regularly archived in Amazon S3 Glacier, which is a secure and durable cloud storage class for data archiving and long-term backup. This delivers 99.9% durability and provides comprehensive security and compliance meeting stringent archiving requirements. Contributing institutions have perpetual access to their own content on PQDT free-of-charge. 

Questions about the Submissions Process

What are the requirements for a university to be eligible to submit content to ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global?

In order to maintain consistent, high and inclusive standards of excellence, ProQuest aligns its accreditation requirements for graduate degree-granting institutions and programs with organizations recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). All U.S. electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) disseminated via ProQuest Dissertations &Theses (PQDT) Global and via ProQuest.com are required to meet the following criteria. Please contact our Author School Relations team here if you have any questions.

In order to be eligible for publication, electronic theses and dissertations from institutions in the U.S. must meet either Criterion #1 or Criterion #2, below. (It is not necessary to meet both criteria).

    1. Criterion #1. Check to see if your graduate degree-granting university/institution is accredited by one of the organizations on the list below. If so, your ETD is eligible for publication in PQDT Global. The majority of content ProQuest receives, whether through an institutional partnership or direct from author publishing, comes from institutions accredited by one of these eleven agencies:
      • New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE)
      • Higher Learning Commission (HLC)
      • Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC)
      • Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU)
      • WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC)
      • Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) Commission on Accreditation
      • Association of Reformed Theological Seminaries Commission on Accreditation (ARTS)
      • Association of Advanced Rabbinical and Talmudic Schools (AARTS), Accreditation Commission
      • Commission on Accrediting of the Association of Theological Schools (ATS)
      • Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS), Accreditation Commission
      • Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC)
    1. Criterion #2. If the university or institution you completed your ETD at does not meet the standard above, the academic program that you graduated from must be accredited by a CHEA-approved accreditor. See https://www.chea.org/accrediting-organizations-recognized-chea-names-only for the complete list of CHEA-approved programmatic accrediting organizations.

 

How can my university contribute dissertations to ProQuest?

We suggest that universities use the free ETD Administrator review and approval tool (www.etdadmin.com). For institutions that have an existing reliable electronic submission tool, we offer another automated content retrieval option through our ARC Program. If interested in becoming a submission partner contact academic.relations@proquest.com.

Can we submit metadata only to PQDT Global?

We do not offer that option because it misaligns with researchers’ needs and expectations to be able to fully use the search, curation, and analysis tools that the ProQuest Platform offers. Researchers require the full text in the ProQuest platform environment in order to take advantage of features such as full text searching across the 3 million full-text dissertations and theses, reference linking that ProQuest enables between works, and enhanced searching for advisors, universities, etc.

What is the relationship between ProQuest and Turnitin.com?

ProQuest supports partnering institutions’ efforts to communicate and maintain academic integrity policies and originality standards. ProQuest has partnered with Turnitin since 2012 to offer authors, institutions, publishers, and other non-academic research entities a means of ensuring the originality of new work and ensuring creators of previously produced work are appropriately acknowledged by making dissertations and theses available within Turnitin. Turnitin and iThenticate tools are helpful resources for protecting the reputation of institutions, advisors, students, researchers, writers, and publishers from plagiarism.

How much of the thesis or dissertation is revealed in Turnitin/iThenticate?

Only content in the theses or dissertations that matches will appear. Author names and titles are not typically revealed.

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