Electronic Theses & Dissertations logo
Author Help Page

The Submission Process

Logging In

Use the login page to log in to the ETD submission process. Sign on using your University of Pittsburgh computer account username and password.

Once you have begun the process of submitting your ETD, you may sign on as often as you like to continue making changes to your information until all your supporting paperwork has been submitted and your ETD is approved by your graduate school.

The security system used by the submission process requires that your browser support and allow cookies.

ETD status

The submission process uses a persistent ETD Status message to keep you aware of what you've already done, and what still needs to be done before your ETD can be approved. You should also use this status window to navigate among the different steps of the submission process.

In order to be considered complete, your ETD must:

Pay special attention to any items in the status message which are displayed in red, these are items that need to be dealt with before your ETD can be approved.

Sample ETD Status message (links removed)

ETD Status

Items in red represent information that must be added or changed before your ETD can be approved.

  • Start Over
  • View Main Record
  • Update Main Record
  • Update Committee Information
  • Add File Information
  • Log Out

Adding Files

The ETD submission process requires you to upload files using a Web browser.

File uploads through a browser window are supported by all versions of Netscape greater than 3.0 and all versions of Internet Explorer greater than 4.0. File uploads will not work properly if your browser is using a proxy server of any kind.

It is reccommended that you keep your files under 30Mb, as it increases the usability of your research over the Web.

As a rule, a correct filename will not contain any spaces or slashes. On the title page that will eventually present your information over the Web, your files will be sorted alphanumerically. If you want to guarantee that your files will appear in a given order, it is suggested that you name them with two digit numeral codes in front of them, something like the following:

Entering Abstract

In general, you can copy and paste your abstract from a standard word processing program into the abstract field in your browser window. Be aware that special characters such as é and this section sign, §, often will not copy correctly if you cut and paste them into the form.

Entering Keywords

To improve access to your ETD, select keywords or phrases that are NOT already in your abstract or title page. All of those words are already indexed for searching. Selecting additional words and phrases that are descriptive and unique will increase the probability that searches will retrieve your ETD. Consult your chapter subheadings and conclusion for different but appropriate search terms. If you cut and paste your keywords from your word processor, you should avoid any special characters (umlauts, accent marks, quotation marks).

How to Enter Special Characters

Some special characters do not display correctly in a browser window. For most of these cases, there are HTML entities which can be used to safely display the special characters. An HTML entity consists of an ampersand (&), a word or number (lt, for example), and a semicolon (;)

For Example:

Select the character you need from this list of html entities and type the HTML entity into the abstract, title or keyword field of your ETD record. Besure to begin with the ampersand and end with the semicolon.

For symbols and greek characters, it is recommended to use the decimal equivalent rather than the HTML entity name to improve interpretation by more browsers. For example, for the Greek lowercase letter gamma, use:

&915; rather than Γ

Browser Compatibility Issues

In order to use the ETD submission process, your browser must support cookies and file uploads. There are currently known incompatibilities with the Macintosh version of Netscape version 3.02, you will need to upgrade if you are using this version.

Cookies

A cookie is a bit of information about a user or session that is stored in a cookies.txt file by a compatible browser. Whenever the browser requests a page from a host for which it has cookie information, it also sends the cookie information along, which can be used by any scripts or CGI programs capable of processing cookie data. In our case, this cookie is used to store a unique session ID, so that it is not neccessary for you to log in repeatedly before visiting each subsequent page in the process.

Most recent browsers come with cookies enabled, but people often disable them for various reasons. If your browser has cookies disabled, consult the documentation (online or otherwise) that comes with your browser for instructions on reenabling cookies.

The session cookies issued by our scripts are set to expire in 15 minutes, but are renewed by each subsequent script. If you remain on the same page for more than 15 minutes, your cookie will expire, and you will be required to log in again. If this happens, you can still use the "back" button on your browser to return to the page you were working on before your cookie expired.

Problems using proxies

A proxy is a machine which allows your browser to download pages as though it were coming from a different location. Proxies are typically used to allow access to materials restricted to a particular location. Proxies are also used to allow access between networks. Users of some versions of AOL's default browser use this type of proxy arrangement to connect to the internet. To use the file upload feature of your browser, you must not be making use of a proxy. Proxy settings for most browsers can be changed as needed, for more information, consult the help files for your particular browser. If you are using AOL, you must download and use a newer version of either Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer in conjunction with your AOL account.

The graduate school review process

Once you have submitted all of the minimum information needed to make up an ETD, your ETD will be reviewed by your graduate school. This process can take as little as a few days, or as long as several weeks, depending on the number of ETDs waiting to be approved.

Notices

If anything about your ETD needs to be changed before it can be approved, your graduate school may send you a notice, which is a brief message describing the steps you need to take to complete your ETD. Notices are generally delivered as email messages to whatever author email address you entered for your ETD. Notices may also be sent to your committee chair if there are problems reaching you. Once you receive a message indicating that you have a notice, you should login again and make the requested changes. Once you have made the requested changes, it is very important that you send a response to your graduate school, so that they will know that your ETD has been updated and is ready to be reviewed again.

Starting Over

If you would like to stop work on a partially completed ETD and completely start over, the "Start Over" link in the ETD Status block that appears on most pages will give you the ability to completely remove all of the files and information you have already added and start again.

Send comments or questions to: uls-etdfeedbackgroup@mail.pitt.edu

The University of Pittsburgh ETD system is based on the ETD-db software developed at Virginia Tech in conjunction with the NDLTD. The software has been modified by the Department of Information Systems of the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh.

Last Modified on: