Beginning Fall 2016, Old Dominion University requires theses and dissertations to be submitted electronically, rather than in print. Students submit their electronic thesis or dissertation to the ProQuest ETD Admin site (etdadmin.com/odu), the University Registrar reviews and approves it, and the Libraries place it in ODU Digital Commons, our institutional repository. As of 2025, pre-2016 theses and dissertations from ODU have been added to Digital Commons.
Electronic submission has the following benefits:
- Submissions typically are processed twice as quickly as paper submissions
- There is no longer a bindery fee
- Manuscripts submitted digitally retain their original appearance, with color images, graphics, and crisp, clear text
- Graduate students learn about electronic publishing and digital libraries
- Graduate research is more discoverable than it formerly was and therefore gets more visibility and more use
- The process saves paper and library shelf space
Because the University Libraries no longer maintain a print thesis and dissertation collection, the document in the institutional repository is the official university copy. For further information see also
Graduate Student Resources.
Theses and dissertations completed at Eastern Virginia Medical School prior to integration with ODU on July 1, 2024 are not yet included in Digital Commons unless they were completed as part of a cross-institutional program with ODU. Works completed after July 1, 2024 are being added but are incomplete.
