Submitting Your Thesis, Fees, and Copies

All students, except those pursuing an MFA degree, are required to submit their theses electronically via ProQuest. Below are instructions for both electronic and hard-copy submissions.

In Fall 2018, the Graduate College moved to a single-deposit model for thesis submission. Instead of having both a first and a final deposit, there is now a single thesis deposit. In Spring 2019, the thesis deposit deadline is April 19. Under the new defend, then deposit model, you won’t need to submit your thesis to the Graduate College until you have defended it and finalized the manuscript.

At deposit your thesis must be complete and in final form. It must include all required elements and finalized content. The thesis must be properly formatted.

Deposit Guidelines for Thesis Submission (Understanding the Deposit Process)

ProQuest Deposit

Your deposit—whether submitted electronically or in hard copy—must be submitted no later than 5:00 p.m. Iowa time on the established deadline date for a given semester. Please do not wait to submit your thesis until the deadline day. This will give the Graduate College time to review the thesis to determine if it is complete, and to notify you if there are missing materials that will need to be submitted before the deadline. Failure to submit the thesis by the deadline date established by the Graduate College will result in the postponement of graduation to a future session.

At deposit, your thesis must be complete and in final form. Your thesis must include all edits or changes your thesis committee requested as a result of your defense. It must also include all required manuscript elements— including properly formatted preliminary pages—and meet our formatting requirements. To help, we’ve provided properly formatted preliminary pages. Find more information about manuscript elements, formatting requirements, and preliminary pages under Preparing the Thesis.

Electronic submissions (ProQuest): You will submit your thesis to the Graduate College via ProQuest (MFA students have the option to submit a hard copy version instead). More information about the process—and information about copyright, fees, and submitting your public abstract—can be found here. Once you submit, you should receive an email receipt of submission from ProQuest. If you don’t, please call 319.335.2144 to make sure we have received you submission. Remember, you must meet the deposit deadline.

Your deposit must be accompanied by a signed Report of Thesis Approval. This replaces the Certificate of Approval, which the Graduate College no longer requires. Students completing an electronic submission will upload this signed form to ProQuest. This is a required step in the ProQuest registration process.

After deposit, all students will receive formatting corrections from our office. You are required to make these corrections. ProQuest users will submit their corrected theses via ProQuest, using the same account they initially created. Note that you will not receive an email confirmation of your resubmission from ProQuest. If you are unsure whether the Graduate College has received your resubmission, please call 319.335.2144. Those submitting a hard copy will be required to resubmit their revisions to our office, 205 Gilmore Hall.

The deposit may be submitted no later than the end of the semester (summers excluded) following the session in which the final examination is passed (See Graduate College Manual of Rule and Regulations, Section XII.M.).

Hard Copy Deposit (MFA)

Your deposit—whether submitted electronically or in hard copy—must be submitted no later than 5:00 p.m. Iowa time on the established deadline date for a given semester. Please do not wait to submit your thesis until the deadline day. This will give the Graduate College time to review the thesis to determine if it is complete, and to notify you if there are missing materials that will need to be submitted before the deadline. Failure to submit the thesis by the deadline date established by the Graduate College will result in the postponement of graduation to a future session.

At deposit, your thesis must be complete and in final form. Your thesis must include all edits or changes your thesis committee requested as a result of your defense. It must also include all required manuscript elements— including properly formatted preliminary pages—and meet our formatting requirements. To help, we’ve provided properly formatted preliminary pages. Find more information about manuscript elements, formatting requirements, and preliminary pages under Preparing the Thesis.

MFA students who opt to submit a hard copy thesis must meet the same deadlines as students who submit their theses electronically. At deposit you must submit two, unbound, single-sided copies of your thesis, complete and in final form.

Your deposit must be accompanied by a signed Report of Thesis Approval. This replaces the Certificate of Approval, which the Graduate College no longer requires. Students who submit a thesis in hard copy must make sure our office receives the form by the deposit deadline.

The deposit may be submitted no later than the end of the semester (summers excluded) following the session in which the final examination is passed (See Graduate College Manual of Rule and Regulations, Section XII.M.).

All hard-copy theses are to be unbound, with single-column type on one side of the page only.

Paper

  • 8 ½ x 11 inch
  • White
  • Archival (acid-free)
  • 20–24 pound weight
  • The author must obtain prior approval from the Graduate College for the use of non-standard size paper.

Print Quality

  • The thesis deposit is to be reproduced on a laser-quality printer.
  • The two copies required at deposit must be identical (two original copies or two photocopies).
  • All pages of a deposit are to be clean, evenly dark, and with no visible evidence of correction.
  • Final copies must meet high standards of permanence, legibility, uniformity, and reproducibility.

Fees and Copies

See below for a description of the fees related to your thesis and how they are billed. If for some reason your graduation is delayed, these fees are only charged once. Also included is information on how to order bound copies and related costs.

Thesis and Publication / Binding Fees

All thesis students are billed a one-time, $145 nonrefundable thesis fee by the Graduate College to cover processing and review costs. Thesis students are also charged a $10 publication fee, which covers archiving of the thesis. For an M.F.A. hard-copy thesis, this fee includes the binding of one copy of the thesis, which will be placed in the UI Libraries. These fees are billed to your student account (U-bill) when you complete your Application for Degree.

Copyright Fee

Copyright is the legal protection of an author’s intellectual property. In order to establish a public record of a thesis and to prevent the unlawful reproduction, use, or distribution of the work, you may choose to register your copyright. Students submitting a thesis via ProQuest may elect to do so via ProQuest for a $55 fee. The copyright fee covers the U.S. copyright fee, as well as the costs to ProQuest of the copies required by the Copyright Office.

Students who opt to register their copyright through ProQuest must complete the appropriate section of the Submission and Payment section on ProQuest and pay the copyright fee to ProQuest.

Information on filing a copyright directly with the US Copyright Office can be found here.

Traditional / Open Access Publishing Fees

When submitting your thesis to ProQuest, you may choose either Traditional or Open Access Publishing. If you choose Open Access Publishing, ProQuest will charge you a fee of $95.

All theses are made available to the public through The University of Iowa Libraries. Electronic thesis deposits (ETDs) are first submitted to ProQuest for digital archiving and then forwarded to The University of Iowa Libraries, where they are catalogued and made available for public use through Iowa Research Online. Because your thesis will be made available to the public via the UI Libraries, select Traditional Publishing. There is no need to pay an additional $95 fee for Open Access Publishing

Ordering Bound Copies

Students do not automatically receive copies of their theses, but must instead order bound copies if they wish to have them. Because they take less time to process and are less expensive (typically costing $30–45), the Graduate College recommends ordering bound copies through the University Libraries. You can find more information about ordering through the Libraries here.