Faculty & Graduate Students

The Libraries will assist graduate students with identifying and using research resources for your thesis or dissertation. Contact a liaison librarian for assistance.

• For copyright assistance, contact Karen Vaughan, kvaughan@odu.edu 
• For specific policies and procedures, contact the Graduate School -- graduateschool@odu.edu
• Or, consult the Old Dominion University Guide for Preparation of Theses and Dissertations [PDF] (rev. 2018)
  The primary purpose of this manual is to provide uniform standards regarding style and format while allowing enough flexibility to satisfy the acceptable practices of each academic discipline.

Since 2016, ODU instituted an Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) program -- electronic format is now required for all students. All dissertations and theses will be submitted and available electronically through ProQuest's Dissertations & Theses @ ODU, and the University's official copy will be available through the university's institutional repository: ODU Digital Commons. No new print copies are available in the University Libraries. In fact, all pre-2016 dissertations and some theses are available in the repository; we are currently working on digitizing pre-2016 Master's theses which should be available electronically sometime in 2024.

For more information about submitting your ETD, including the official guide, go to the ODU Graduate School Resources page.