Caltech Library System

Introduction

Definition of ETD

ETD Examples (from Virginia Tech)

Letter to Caltech Students Preparing an ETD

Dear Student Preparing an ETD,

Your Electronic Thesis or Dissertation or ETD will contribute to worldwide graduate education as Caltech initiates participation in the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) (http://www.ndltd.org/) in collaboration with other scholarly institutions.

Virginia Tech computer science Professor Ed Fox has played a seminal role over the last decade and a half in developing the ETD concept into a multi-institutional document repository (http://www.ndltd.org/info/descr.htm).

Caltech Library System invited Professor Fox to Caltech in 1999 to explain the program in depth to key academic officials.  Professor Arden Albee, at that time Dean of Graduate Studies, committed Caltech to eventual NDLTD participation.

Current Graduate Dean Rod Kiewiet, in consultation with the Graduate Studies Committee and with Caltech Library System, has determined that electronic (as well as paper) submission of theses will be required for graduation as of July 2002.

The Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Initiative at Caltech has several goals, including to help you in your career, to help other learners and researchers, and to make available many works that are now "lost" (e.g., theses that led to no other publications and that only are available through inter-library loan or from University Microfilms Inc.).

This Caltech ETD website presents the basics for students preparing ETDs.  Abundant external sources are identified for those who wish to dig deeper.

Thank you for your contributions to the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations and the Caltech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Initiative.