Quarterly Timeline

For students intending to graduate in June:

Before Spring Quarter Begins:

Consider copyright issues. If your dissertation includes material protected by copyright and your use goes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright holder to include the material. It's a good idea to take care of this prior to the quarter you plan to graduate because you need this permission before you receive departmental approval for your dissertation submission and before you submit the final version of your dissertation.

Schedule your defense. The defense (and any revisions recommended by your dissertation committee) must occur before you submit the final version of your dissertation. Contact your graduate program administrator to ensure that you meet deadlines and requirements specific to your program.

Your graduate program administrator can also tell you how much time your department will need for their review of your dissertation submission and how you should go about acquiring and completing the Departmental Approval Form. The department chair should not sign the form unless you have successfully defended and completed all necessary revisions.

As soon as Winter Quarter has ended, if you have successfully defended, finished all revisions and edits, and obtained copies of any additional material you need, such as permission letters, you are welcome to complete the Submission steps in the ProQuest ETD Administrator and to file your dissertation. Early submissions are welcome.

First Week

Register for a workshop covering dissertation submission procedures. The workshop is optional, but registration is required if you wish to attend.

Apply to graduate for this quarter. Remember to check with your department to be sure you will meet departmental deadlines and requirements.

You will be submitting your dissertation online using the ProQuest ETD Administrator, a web-based submission system. Sign up for an ETD account, activate the ETD account, complete your contact information (under Publishing information), and explore the ETD Administrator site. Completing the contact information section promptly is an important step. You must go to Contact information and enter your name before your submission will be be visible to us. The author name should be your diploma name and be entered using upper and lower case. The Institutional Student ID is your 8-digit University of Chicago Student ID and the first two numbers are 10 or 12.

Request a draft review if you wish to do so and we have not reviewed your draft previously. We do not review more than one version of a draft.

Second Week

Go to your dissertation submission and explore the submission steps in the ProQuest ETD Administrator. Review the University-Wide Requirements for the Ph.D. Dissertation, and bring your questions to a workshop on dissertation submission procedures.

Look at the Publishing information section of the ETD Administrator Submission steps, and consider your options. Let us know if you still have questions about your publication options or about copyright and fair use. You should resolve any copyright issues prior to the quarter you plan to graduate.

Third Week

Request a draft review if you would like to do so.

Complete the Publishing information section of the ETD Administrator Submission steps. Note the Rights Verification section in the ProQuest Agreement. If you choose to embargo your dissertation in ProQuest and to include it in our Institutional Repository, you should delay release to the repository for the same amount of time. You should resolve any copyright issues prior to the quarter you plan to graduate.

Save a copy of the ProQuest Agreement, of the University Agreement, and of pages showing your decisions. Retain this information for your files. Contact us with questions about your publication decisions now instead of waiting until the last minute.

Fourth Week

The draft review deadline is Wednesday. Follow the numbered steps to ask us to review a draft of your dissertation any time before 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 10, and we will do our best to send you comments within the next two or three weeks.

While do not review more than one version of a draft nor drafts requested after our deadline, we are happy to respond to your questions.

Fifth Week

Complete your ETD Administrator Dissertation/Thesis details from Primary language through Committee Members. Check your dissertation details for accuracy. It is all too easy to select the wrong department or subject category from a drop box.

Please be especially careful with your title. We ask that you use headline style (upper and lower case) to enter your title so that it looks the way it will look in the convocation program. Except for the capitalization, the title here should match the title on the title page of your dissertation. If you change the title at some point, be sure you change it in both places.

Review your abstract. An abstract is required, and it should be no longer than 350-500 words. Your degree date is June 2024. Remember to include keywords and the names of your committee members.

Sixth Week

Upload the PDF of your dissertation and copyright permission documents if you have any to submit. Then upload any supplemental files you wish to include. Review all your files to be certain that no further editing is needed, that you uploaded the correct versions, that they are not corrupted, and that they comply with the University-Wide Requirements for the Ph.D. Dissertation. At this point, you have completed the first three Submission steps under About my dissertation/thesis, and your dissertation submission is ready to be reviewed and approved by your department.

Let your graduate program administrator know as soon as your dissertation submission is ready for the departmental review. You will need to upload a completed copy of the Departmental Approval Form next week, and your department may ask you to make changes before completing and signing the form. Please note that some departments require additional time, and you may be asked to upload your dissertation earlier than this week.

Please complete the Survey of Earned Doctorates and the University of Chicago questionnaire shortly before submitting the final version of your dissertation so that you will be able to upload your Survey of Earned Doctorates Certificate of Completion in your ETD Administrator Administrative documents. You will also need to upload the Departmental Approval Form.

Seventh Week

The final version of your dissertation is due no later than 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 1, 2024.

Upload the Survey of Earned Doctorates Certificate of Completion and the signed and completed Departmental Approval Form in the Administrative documents section of the Submission steps.

Complete the Submission & payment section. This section offers two fee-based services: copyright registration and dissertation printing and binding. These services are optional. Once you have indicated whether or not you wish to take advantage of either service, you will be asked to pay for author copies (if ordered), along with any applicable Open Access and/or copyright registration fees. (Open Access is free through the University of Chicago Repository and is a better choice if you are interested in open access.) If you order bound copies of your dissertation, use a Shipping Address that will be valid for several months as it may take ProQuest more than 12 weeks to process your order. These fee-based services cannot be edited online. To change them after you have clicked on Submit, you will need to contact ProQuest directly.

Keep copies of your agreements, choices, and orders. Carefully review your publishing information, contact information, your dissertation details, your PDF and any other files you have chosen to include, and make any necessary revisions before clicking on Submit. At this point, your dissertation is final, and you should not make any changes other than those requested by the Dissertation Office.

Eighth Week through the End of the Winter Quarter

Check your email regularly in case we need additional material from you. You should also check that messages from the ETD system are not filtered out as spam.

Dissertation Office staff will audit the material on the ETD Administrator to ensure that your submission meets the specifications in the University-Wide Requirements for the Ph.D. Dissertation. We will let you know whether or not these specifications have been met in time for you to make revisions.

Please remain in contact with our office. We may have questions, and we will be in touch.

June 1, 2024

Spring Quarter ends. Congratulations on the conferral of your degree.

After Graduation

If you selected the Institutional Repository (IR) option, your dissertation will be added to Knowledge@UChicago after the quarter ends and dissertations have been sent to ProQuest.

Wait for your dissertation to be added to ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. ETDs are delivered to ProQuest after the end of the quarter. Once ProQuest receives your dissertation, it may take 8-12 weeks before your dissertation appears online.

Wait for bound copies of your dissertation. If you have ordered copies of your dissertation from ProQuest, it will take slightly longer than 8-12 weeks before you receive your copies.

Contact the Dissertation Office if you need to renew an embargo or to initiate an embargo after graduation. Dissertation Office staff members coordinate post-convocation embargo requests with University Administration and with ProQuest.