Since the 1980s Virginia Tech has played a leadership role in Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) initiatives worldwide. It was the first university to require ETDs--Jan. 1, 1997. The Library stores, provides access, and preserves VT ETDs, which have received the Graduate School's approval.

Virginia Tech's ETD policies, procedures, and software is openly available from this Web site, which provides access to information that will help other institutions establish and maintain their ETD initiatives. At etd.vt.edu are the guidelines and policies that apply to Virginia Tech's graduate students as ETD authors.

A primary goals of ETD initiatives is to both make the research and scholarship conducted by graduate students readily accessible, and to preserve it for the long-term. Virginia Tech's ETDs are available by browsing authors and departments in the ETD database, the library's online catalog (Addison), and from the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), as well as other sources.

ETDs also give future academics opportunities to prepare electronic works such as book chapters, journal articles, and conference presentations, that will also be submitted, reviewed and published electronically. Authors can practice online submissions.

Another goal of ETDs is to expand the medium of expression beyond printed text and illustrations, to audio, video, 3-D images, etc. Every year the NDLTD sponsors financial awards to graduate students for "Innovative ETDs" and "Innovative Learning through ETDs. See award winning-ETDs.

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Find out about ETDs

• Facts, Data, Information
  Archiving, servers, staffing, use, etc.
• Presentations and Publications about VT ETDs
• 2000 VT Alumni Survey Results (PDF 519KB)