Projects in Lieu of Theses

In 2009, a subcommittee of the Electronic Theses and Dissertations Committee met with faculty and staff from the advising offices and libraries that support the College of Fine Arts and the College of Design, Construction and Planning.  The subcommittee addressed the need to fill the gap in digitization of terminal projects in programs within these colleges.  Because these students produce projects rather than standard theses, they fell outside the normal processing of the Graduate Editorial Office, the body responsible for current electronic theses and dissertations. In an effort to better serve this segment of the student population on behalf of the libraries, University of Florida Digital Collections began to accept copies of these projects for inclusion in the Institutional Repository in Spring 2009.

If you are a graduate student currently preparing a terminal project for inclusion in University of Florida Digital Collections, technical requirements are listed below.  Likewise, if you graduated from a program that required a terminal project in lieu of a thesis and you would like your work included in this collection, we are happy to assist.  The same permissions and technical guidelines apply to projects previously published, even if bound and kept in the library’s physical collections.  If you have additional questions, please contact us.

Submission Help for Projects in Lieu of Theses

For materials to be processed into the University of Florida Digital Collections, all program requirements apply as well as several technical requirements listed below. Please note that non-project theses and dissertations go through the Graduate Editorial Office and are submitted electronically through an alternate process. Requirements for projects-in-lieu-of to be processed into the University of Florida Digital Collections:

  1. Project-in-lieu-of must be turned into the graduate advisor for the department.
  2. Project-in-lieu-of must be turned in with a signed Internet Distribution Permissions form. All materials submitted to the University of Florida Digital Collections and the Institutional Repository are completely Open Access.
  3. If copyrighted materials are included, the project-in-lieu-of must be turned in with a signed letter of permission to quote or reproduce copyrighted material. Or it must include a list of materials for which copyright permissions were not granted so that the Digital Library Center can ensure that those materials are not included with the online files.
  4. File formats should conform to the acceptable ETD formats list.
  5. Recommended: please turn in all files for the project on CD or DVD. If you are turning your project in on paper, please use non-glossy paper to make the scanning more accurate if possible. For paper-only submissions, please follow the binding guidelines (architecture and music).

Printable guide: draft one page handout

Questions: Please contact your departmental advisor or the UF Digital Collections with any questions.