find doctoral dissertations

Librarians/Admins

• EBSCOhost Collection Manager
• EBSCO Experience Manager
• EBSCO Connect
• Start your research
• EBSCO Mobile App

Clinical Decisions Users

• DynaMed Decisions
• Dynamic Health
• Waiting Rooms
• NoveList Blog

EBSCO Open Dissertations

EBSCO Open Dissertations makes electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) more accessible to researchers worldwide. The free portal is designed to benefit universities and their students and make ETDs more discoverable. 

Increasing Discovery & Usage of ETD Research

EBSCO Open Dissertations is a collaboration between EBSCO and BiblioLabs to increase traffic and discoverability of ETD research. You can join the movement and add your theses and dissertations to the database, making them freely available to researchers everywhere while increasing traffic to your institutional repository. 

EBSCO Open Dissertations extends the work started in 2014, when EBSCO and the H.W. Wilson Foundation created American Doctoral Dissertations which contained indexing from the H.W. Wilson print publication, Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities, 1933-1955. In 2015, the H.W. Wilson Foundation agreed to support the expansion of the scope of the American Doctoral Dissertations database to include records for dissertations and theses from 1955 to the present.

How Does EBSCO Open Dissertations Work?

Your ETD metadata is harvested via OAI and integrated into EBSCO’s platform, where pointers send traffic to your IR.

EBSCO integrates this data into their current subscriber environments and makes the data available on the open web via opendissertations.org .

You might also be interested in:

Open Access Theses and Dissertations

Thursday, April 18, 8:20am (EDT): Searching is temporarily offline. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to bring searching back up as quickly as possible.

Advanced research and scholarship. Theses and dissertations, free to find, free to use.

Advanced search options

Browse by author name (“Author name starts with…”).

Find ETDs with:

Written in any language English Portuguese French German Spanish Swedish Lithuanian Dutch Italian Chinese Finnish Greek Published in any country US or Canada Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile China Colombia Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Ireland Italy Japan Latvia Lithuania Malaysia Mexico Netherlands New Zealand Norway Peru Portugal Russia Singapore South Africa South Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Thailand UK US Earliest date Latest date

Sorted by Relevance Author University Date

Only ETDs with Creative Commons licenses

Results per page: 30 60 100

October 3, 2022. OATD is dealing with a number of misbehaved crawlers and robots, and is currently taking some steps to minimize their impact on the system. This may require you to click through some security screen. Our apologies for any inconvenience.

Recent Additions

See all of this week’s new additions.

About OATD.org

OATD.org aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions . OATD currently indexes 7,254,624 theses and dissertations.

About OATD (our FAQ) .

Visual OATD.org

We’re happy to present several data visualizations to give an overall sense of the OATD.org collection by county of publication, language, and field of study.

You may also want to consult these sites to search for other theses:

• Google Scholar
• NDLTD , the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. NDLTD provides information and a search engine for electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), whether they are open access or not.
• Proquest Theses and Dissertations (PQDT), a database of dissertations and theses, whether they were published electronically or in print, and mostly available for purchase. Access to PQDT may be limited; consult your local library for access information.

How to find resources by format

Why use a dissertation or a thesis.

A dissertation is the final large research paper, based on original research, for many disciplines to be able to complete a PhD degree. The thesis is the same idea but for a masters degree.

They are often considered scholarly sources since they are closely supervised by a committee, are directed at an academic audience, are extensively researched, follow research methodology, and are cited in other scholarly work. Often the research is newer or answering questions that are more recent, and can help push scholarship in new directions. 

Search for dissertations and theses

Locating dissertations and theses.

The Proquest Dissertations and Theses Global database includes doctoral dissertations and selected masters theses from major universities worldwide.

• Searchable by subject, author, advisor, title, school, date, etc.
• More information about full text access and requesting through Interlibrary Loan

NDLTD – Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations provides free online access to a over a million theses and dissertations from all over the world.

WorldCat Dissertations and Theses searches library catalogs from across the U.S. and worldwide.

Locating University of Minnesota Dissertations and Theses

Use  Libraries search  and search by title or author and add the word "thesis" in the search box. Write down the library and call number and find it on the shelf. They can be checked out.

Check the  University Digital Conservancy  for online access to dissertations and theses from 2007 to present as well as historic, scanned theses from 1887-1923.

Other Sources for Dissertations and Theses

• Center for Research Libraries
• DART-Europe E-Thesis Portal
• Theses Canada
• Ethos (Great Britain)
• Australasian Digital Theses in Trove
• DiVA (Sweden)
• E-Thesis at the University of Helsinki
• DissOnline (Germany)
• List of libraries worldwide - to search for a thesis when you know the institution and cannot find in the larger collections

University of Minnesota Dissertations and Theses FAQs

What dissertations and theses are available.

With minor exceptions, all doctoral dissertations and all "Plan A" master's theses accepted by the University of Minnesota are available in the University Libraries system. In some cases (see below) only a non-circulating copy in University Archives exists, but for doctoral dissertations from 1940 to date, and for master's theses from 1925 to date, a circulating copy should almost always be available.

"Plan B" papers, accepted in the place of a thesis in many master's degree programs, are not received by the University Libraries and are generally not available. (The only real exceptions are a number of old library school Plan B papers on publishing history, which have been separately cataloged.) In a few cases individual departments may have maintained files of such papers.

In what libraries are U of M dissertations and theses located?

Circulating copies of doctoral dissertations:.

• Use Libraries Search to look for the author or title of the work desired to determine location and call number of a specific dissertation. Circulating copies of U of M doctoral dissertations can be in one of several locations in the library system, depending upon the date and the department for which the dissertation was done. The following are the general rules:
• Dissertations prior to 1940 Circulating copies of U of M dissertations prior to 1940 do not exist (with rare exceptions): for these, only the archival copy (see below) is available. Also, most dissertations prior to 1940 are not cataloged in MNCAT and can only be identified by the departmental listings described below.  
• Dissertations from 1940-1979 Circulating copies of U of M dissertations from 1940 to 1979 will in most cases be held within the Elmer L. Andersen Library, with three major classes of exceptions: dissertations accepted by biological, medical, and related departments are housed in the Health Science Library; science/engineering dissertations from 1970 to date will be located in the Science and Engineering Library (in Walter); and dissertations accepted by agricultural and related departments are available at the Magrath Library or one of the other libraries on the St. Paul campus (the Magrath Library maintains records of locations for such dissertations).  
• Dissertations from 1980-date Circulating copies of U of M dissertations from 1980 to date at present may be located either in Wilson Library (see below) or in storage; consult Libraries Search for location of specific items. Again, exceptions noted above apply here also; dissertations in their respective departments will instead be in Health Science Library or in one of the St. Paul campus libraries.

Circulating copies of master's theses:

• Theses prior to 1925 Circulating copies of U of M master's theses prior to 1925 do not exist (with rare exceptions); for these, only the archival copy (see below) is available.  
• Theses from 1925-1996 Circulating copies of U of M master's theses from 1925 to 1996 may be held in storage; consult Libraries search in specific instances. Once again, there are exceptions and theses in their respective departments will be housed in the Health Science Library or in one of the St. Paul campus libraries.  
• Theses from 1997-date Circulating copies of U of M master's theses from 1997 to date will be located in Wilson Library (see below), except for the same exceptions for Health Science  and St. Paul theses. There is also an exception to the exception: MHA (Masters in Health Administration) theses through 1998 are in the Health Science Library, but those from 1999 on are in Wilson Library.

Archival copies (non-circulating)

Archival (non-circulating) copies of virtually all U of M doctoral dissertations from 1888-1952, and of U of M master's theses from all years up to the present, are maintained by University Archives (located in the Elmer L. Andersen Library). These copies must be consulted on the premises, and it is highly recommended for the present that users make an appointment in advance to ensure that the desired works can be retrieved for them from storage. For dissertations accepted prior to 1940 and for master's theses accepted prior to 1925, University Archives is generally the only option (e.g., there usually will be no circulating copy). Archival copies of U of M doctoral dissertations from 1953 to the present are maintained by Bell and Howell Corporation (formerly University Microfilms Inc.), which produces print or filmed copies from our originals upon request. (There are a very few post-1952 U of M dissertations not available from Bell and Howell; these include such things as music manuscripts and works with color illustrations or extremely large pages that will not photocopy well; in these few cases, our archival copy is retained in University Archives.)

Where is a specific dissertation of thesis located?

To locate a specific dissertation or thesis it is necessary to have its call number. Use Libraries Search for the author or title of the item, just as you would for any other book. Depending on date of acceptance and cataloging, a typical call number for such materials should look something like one of the following:

Dissertations: Plan"A" Theses MnU-D or 378.7M66 MnU-M or 378.7M66 78-342 ODR7617 83-67 OL6156 Libraries Search will also tell the library location (MLAC, Health Science Library, Magrath or another St. Paul campus library, Science and Engineering, Business Reference, Wilson Annex or Wilson Library). Those doctoral dissertations still in Wilson Library (which in all cases should be 1980 or later and will have "MnU-D" numbers) are located in the central section of the third floor. Those master's theses in Wilson (which in all cases will be 1997 or later and will have "MnU-M" numbers) are also located in the central section of the third floor. Both dissertations and theses circulate and can be checked out, like any other books, at the Wilson Circulation desk on the first floor.

How can dissertations and theses accepted by a specific department be located?

Wilson Library contains a series of bound and loose-leaf notebooks, arranged by department and within each department by date, listing dissertations and theses. Information given for each entry includes name of author, title, and date (but not call number, which must be looked up individually). These notebooks are no longer current, but they do cover listings by department from the nineteenth century up to approximately 1992. Many pre-1940 U of M dissertations and pre-1925 U of M master's theses are not cataloged (and exist only as archival copies). Such dissertations can be identified only with these volumes. The books and notebooks are shelved in the general collection under these call numbers: Wilson Ref LD3337 .A5 and Wilson Ref quarto LD3337 .U9x. Major departments of individual degree candidates are also listed under their names in the GRADUATE SCHOOL COMMENCEMENT programs of the U of M, available in University Archives and (for recent years) also in Wilson stacks (LD3361 .U55x).

• << Previous: Dictionaries and encyclopedias
• Next: E-books >>

Ask Yale Library

My Library Accounts

Find, Request, and Use

Help and Research Support

Visit and Study

Explore Collections

Resources to Find Dissertations: Home

Description.

This page provides links to databases and websites to find dissertations. This includes links to general databases to find dissertations, databases focused on the humanities, foreign dissertations, dissertations on religion, and dissertations hosted by other universities.

General Databases

Humanities dissertations, foreign dissertations, religion dissertations, dissertations of universities, yale divinity library.

Science Dissertations

• Last Updated: Aug 22, 2023 5:35 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.yale.edu/dissertations

Site Navigation

P.O. BOX 208240 New Haven, CT 06250-8240 (203) 432-1775

Yale's Libraries

Bass Library

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Classics Library

Cushing/Whitney Medical Library

Divinity Library

East Asia Library

Gilmore Music Library

Haas Family Arts Library

Lewis Walpole Library

Lillian Goldman Law Library

Marx Science and Social Science Library

Sterling Memorial Library

Yale Center for British Art

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

@YALELIBRARY

Yale Library Instagram

Accessibility       Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion      Giving       Privacy and Data Use      Contact Our Web Team    

© 2022 Yale University Library • All Rights Reserved

• Enroll & Pay

Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD)

OATD.org provides open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions. OATD currently indexes 6,654,285 theses and dissertations.

Dissertation Repositories, Open Access

How to find dissertations, open access repositories, selected university affiliated, open access repositories.

Use the websites listed below to find freely accessible (open access) dissertations from the United States and other countries.  While all repositories listed here include doctoral dissertations, Master's theses may be available in some cases as well.

Regis College maintains print copies of Regis student theses and dissertations in the Regis Library.  They are not digitized although individual students may have submitted their dissertation to a digital repository.

• American Doctoral Dissertations (EBSCO) A free resource, hosted by EBSCO, this database includes more than 172,000 theses and dissertations in total from 1902 to the present.
• British Library: EThOS, E-theses Online Service EThOS is the UK’s national thesis service. EThOS aims to hold a record for all doctoral theses awarded by all UK universities (institutions). Also available when using Regis Library discovery tool, PowerSearch.
• Digital Commons Network Free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide. Curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions, the Network includes a growing collection of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work.
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). We support electronic publishing and open access to scholarship in order to enhance the sharing of knowledge worldwide.
• Open Access Theses and Dissertations OATD.org aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions. OATD currently indexes 4,264,663 theses and dissertations.
• PQDT Open PQDT Open provides the full text of open access dissertations and theses free of charge. The authors of these dissertations and theses have opted to publish as open access.
• Theses Canada Theses Canada is a collaborative program between Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and nearly 70 universities accredited by Universities Canada. It strives to: acquire and preserve theses and dissertations from participating universities; provide free access to Canadian electronic theses and dissertations in the collection.

These digital repositories maintained by various universities enable public access to theses and dissertations.  These are just a select sample; there are many other repositories associated with universities.

• Duke University: Duke Space, Theses and Dissertations
• Harvard University: Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) Also available when using Regis Library discovery tool, PowerSearch.
• Johns Hopkins University: DSpace Repository
• Northeastern University: Digital Reposity Service: Theses and Dissertations
• University of Washington: ResearchWorks
• Walden University Dissertations and Doctoral Studies
• Last Updated: Jul 12, 2023 8:18 AM
• URL: https://libguides.regiscollege.edu/open_access_dissertations

Global ETD Search

Search the 6,481,932 electronic theses and dissertations contained in the NDLTD archive:

The archive supports advanced filtering and boolean search.

News alert: UC Berkeley has announced its next university librarian

Secondary menu

• Log in to your Library account
• Hours and Maps
• Connect from Off Campus
• UC Berkeley Home

Search form

Dissertations & theses: home, finding dissertations & theses.

The majority of print dissertations in the UC Berkeley Libraries are from UC Berkeley. The libraries have a nearly complete collection of Berkeley doctoral dissertations (wither online, in print, or both), and a large number of Berkeley master's theses.

UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley PhD Dissertations

Dissertations and Theses (Dissertation Abstracts)     UCB access only  1861-present 

Index and full text of graduate dissertations and theses from North American and European schools and universities, including the University of California, with full text of most doctoral dissertations from UC Berkeley and elsewhere from 1996 forward. Dissertations published prior to 2009 may not include information about the department from which the degree was granted. 

UC Berkeley Master's Theses

UC Berkeley Digital Collections   2011-present

Selected UC Berkeley master's theses freely available online. For theses published prior to 2020, check UC Library Search for print availability (see "At the Library" below). 

UC Berkeley dissertations may also be found in eScholarship , UC's online open access repository.

Please note that it may take time for a dissertation to appear in one of the above online resources. Embargoes and other issues affect the release timing.

At the Library:

Dissertations: From 2012 onwards, dissertations are only available online. See above links.

Master's theses : From 2020 onwards, theses are only available online. See above links. 

To locate older dissertations, master's theses, and master's projects in print, search UC Library Search by keyword, title or author. For publications prior to 2009 you may also include a specific UC Berkeley department in your search:  berkeley dissertations <department name> . 

Examples:  berkeley dissertations electrical engineering computer sciences  berkeley dissertations mechanical engineering

University of California - all campuses

Index and full text of graduate dissertations and theses from North American and European schools and universities, including the University of California.

WorldCatDissertations     UCB access only 

Covers all dissertations and theses cataloged in WorldCat, a catalog of materials owned by libraries worldwide. UC Berkeley faculty, staff, and students may use the interlibrary loan request form  for dissertations found in WorldCatDissertations. 

Worldwide - Open Access

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)

The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs).

Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD)

An index of over 3.5 million electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). To the extent possible, the index is limited to records of graduate-level theses that are freely available online.

• Last Updated: Mar 11, 2024 2:47 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/dissertations_theses

Open Access Theses and Dissertations

Direct Link

EBSCO Open Dissertations

Search millions of electronic theses and dissertations (etds).

With EBSCO Open Dissertations, institutions and students are offered an innovative approach to driving additional traffic to ETDs in institutional repositories. Our goal is to help make their students’ theses and dissertations as widely visible and cited as possible.

This approach extends the work started in 2014, when EBSCO and the H.W. Wilson Foundation created American Doctoral Dissertations which contained indexing from the H.W. Wilson print publication, Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities, 1933-1955. In 2015, the H.W. Wilson Foundation agreed to support the expansion of the scope of the American Doctoral Dissertations database to include records for dissertations and theses from 1955 to the present.

Get involved in the EBSCO Open Dissertations project and make your electronic theses and dissertations freely available to researchers everywhere. Please contact Margaret Richter for more information.

All virtual services are available and some libraries are open for in-person use, while others remain closed through January 23, 2022. Learn more .

• Ask a Librarian

How can I find theses and dissertations?

• COVID-19 Spring 2020
• FAS General
• Harvard Map Collection
• Houghton Library
• How to Do Research in...
• 2 African American Studies
• 1 Anthropology
• 1 Art in Harvard Libraries
• 2 Asian Studies
• 1 Audio Books
• 1 Biography
• 4 Borrow Direct
• 13 Borrowing
• 1 Calendars
• 6 Citation of Sources
• 1 Citation Tools
• 1 Computer Science
• 5 Computers
• 4 contemporary legends
• 1 Copyright
• 3 Crimson Cash
• 9 Databases
• 2 Digital Collections
• 2 Distance Learning
• 28 E-Resources
• 1 Economics
• 5 Electronic Books
• 1 Employment
• 1 Equipment
• 1 Extension School
• 1 Foreign Study
• 2 Genealogy
• 3 Government
• 2 Government Documents
• 1 Harvard Depository
• 3 Harvard Studies
• 3 Harvard University Archives
• 32 Harvardiana
• 5 HOLLIS help
• 5 Interlibrary Loan
• 1 Internet access
• 1 Language Resource Center
• 2 Languages
• 9 Libraries
• 3 Library History
• 1 Library science
• 3 Library services
• 1 Library student
• 1 Literature
• 2 Manuscripts
• 2 Microfilm
• 17 miscellaneous
• 17 Newspapers
• 4 Off-Campus
• 1 Permissions
• 1 Phillips Reading Room
• 3 Photographs
• 1 Plagiarism
• 4 Primary Sources
• 12 Privileges
• 1 Public Libraries
• 2 Purchase requests
• 4 Quotations
• 2 Rare Books
• 4 Reference
• 1 Reproduction Request
• 22 Research Assistance
• 1 Safari Books Online
• 1 Scan & Deliver
• 4 Special Borrowers
• 2 Special Collections
• 5 Statistics
• 1 Study Abroad
• 3 Study spaces
• 1 Summer School
• 2 technology
• 5 Theses, Dissertations & Prize Winners
• 3 Web of Science

For Harvard theses, dissertations, and prize winning essays, see our How can I find a Harvard thesis or dissertation ? FAQ entry.

Beyond Harvard, ProQuest  Dissertations and Theses G lobal database (this link requires HarvardKey login) i s a good place to start:

• lists dissertations and theses from most North American graduate schools (including Harvard) and many from universities in Great Britain and Ireland, 1716-present
•  You can get full text from Proquest Dissertations and Theses through your own institutional library or you can often purchase directly from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Express.  

Other sources:

Databases beyond ProQuest Dissertations & Theses:

Some out of copyright works (pre-1924) are available via large digital libraries. Search online for the title.

Networked Digital Library of Electronic Theses and Dissertations ' Global Search scans participating international libraries

The Center for Research Libraries ' Dissertations database includes many non-US theses.

WorldCat  describes many masters' & PhD theses. Use "Advanced Search" and limit to subtype "thesis/dissertation." No full text; it just tells you what libraries have reported having copies.

There are several excellent guides out there with international search recommendations like  University College London's Institute of Education Theses and Dissertations LibGuide .

Institutions:

At the institution where the work originated or the national library of the country (if outside the US):

Online institutional repositories (like Harvard's DASH ): If the work was produced after the  school's repository was established, it may well be found here in full text. 

Libraries: Check the library catalog. There's often a reproductions service ($) for material that hasn't been digitized, but each school has its own policies. Most schools have some kind of "ask a librarian" service where you can ask what to do next.

At your own institution (where applicable) or public library: While many institutions will not lend theses and dissertations or send copies through Interlibrary loan, your Interlibrary Loan department may be able to help you acquire or pay for reproductions. 

• Current Harvard faculty, staff and students: Once you identify a reproduction source you can place a request with Harvard Library ILL  (in the notes field, ask for help with funding).

For Harvard theses and dissertations, see " How can I find a Harvard thesis or dissertation? "

If you're having trouble locating or acquiring a copy of/access to a dissertation, try " Why can't I find this thesis or dissertation?" 

• Ask a Librarian, including chat and email, will be suspended from 5:00 pm on Thursday, December 22, through Monday, January 2, for the holiday break. Any questions received during this period will be answered beginning Tuesday, January 2, 2024 .
• If If you're experiencing an ongoing technical issue when you attempt to access library materials with your HarvardKey during these times, please report it to Library Technology Services.

Monday-Thursday 9am-9pm

Friday-Saturday  9am-5pm

Sunday 12noon-7pm

Chat is intended for brief inquiries from the Harvard community.

Reach out to librarians and other reference specialists by email using our online form . We usually respond within 24 hours Monday through Friday.

Talk to a librarian for advice on defining your topic, developing your research strategy, and locating and using sources. Make an appointment now .

These services are intended primarily for Harvard University faculty, staff and students. If you are not affiliated with Harvard, please use these services only to request information about the Library and its collections.

• Email Us: [email protected]
• Call Us: 617-495-2411
• All Library Hours
• Library Guides
• Staff Login

Harvard Library Virtual Reference Policy Statement

Our chat reference and Research Appointment Request services are intended for Harvard affiliates. All others are welcome to submit questions using the form on this page.

We are happy to answer questions from all Harvard affiliates and from non-affiliates inquiring about the library's collections.

Unfortunately, we're unable to answer questions from the general public which are not directly related to Harvard Library services and collections.

Harvard University Digital Accessibility Policy

• Harvard Library
• Research Guides
• Faculty of Arts & Sciences Libraries

Computer Science Library Research Guide

Find dissertations and theses.

• Get Started
• How to get the full-text
• What is Peer Review?
• Find Books in the SEC Library This link opens in a new window
• Find Conference Proceedings
• Find Patents This link opens in a new window
• Find Standards
• Find Technical Reports
• Find Videos
• Ask a Librarian This link opens in a new window

Engineering Librarian

How to search for Harvard dissertations

• DASH , Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard, is the university's central, open-access repository for the scholarly output of faculty and the broader research community at Harvard.  Most Ph.D. dissertations submitted from  March 2012 forward  are available online in DASH.
• Check HOLLIS, the Library Catalog, and refine your results by using the   Advanced Search   and limiting Resource  Type   to Dissertations
• Search the database  ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global Don't hesitate to  Ask a Librarian  for assistance.

How to search for Non-Harvard dissertations

Library Database:

• ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global

Free Resources:

• Many  universities  provide full-text access to their dissertations via a digital repository.  If you know the title of a particular dissertation or thesis, try doing a Google search.  

Related Sites

• Formatting Your Dissertation - GSAS
• Ph.D. Dissertation Submission  - FAS
• Empowering Students Before you Sign that Contract!  - Copyright at Harvard Library

Select Library Titles

• << Previous: Find Conference Proceedings
• Next: Find Patents >>
• Last Updated: Feb 27, 2024 1:52 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.harvard.edu/cs

Harvard University Digital Accessibility Policy

Finding Dissertations and Theses

• IU Dissertations
• Bibliographies
• Other Resources

Ask a Librarian

Kristina Bradley-Khan, Nickoal Eichmann, Emily Okada, Keila DuBois, Alyssa Denneler.

Based on a document created by Sarah Mitchell in 2010

Created: February 2013

A Guide to Finding Dissertations

Dissertations are book-length works based on a PhD candidate's original research that are written as requirements for the doctoral degree. Theses are similar but shorter texts that are written by students working towards Master's and sometimes Bachelor's degrees.  Both dissertations and theses offer researchers valuable insights and analysis of all subjects. They can also be useful in leading to other resources as part of your own research.

Click on the tabs at the top of this page for information about specific resources and useful search techniques for finding dissertations. You can also navigate using the "Guide Contents" links on the left side of the page.

If you encounter difficulties in obtaining full-texts of dissertations or theses, consult a librarian. The "Ask A Librarian" instant message widget is located on the left of every page underneath the tabs.

Getting Started

Know what you're looking for (mostly)?

When looking for a specific dissertation, you need some or all of the following:

Just looking for a certain subject area?

When looking for dissertations in a specific subject area, you may need a variety of search terms and limiters. For example:

Where to Search

In general, start your search in ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. If you are looking for an IU dissertation and cannot find it in ProQuest, search ScholarWorks. If it is not in ScholarWorks, search IUCAT.

Comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, including millions of works from thousands of universities. Each dissertation published since July, 1980 includes a 350-word abstract written by the author. Master's theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts. Simple bibliographic citations are available for dissertations dating from 1637.

Includes the following: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: UK & Ireland ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: A & I ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: CIC Institutions

An open access repository that organizes and preserves the work of IU scholars, including published and unpublished materials, supplementary files, and gray literature.

The Indiana University online catalog.

IUCAT, Indiana University's online library catalog, provides comprehensive access to millions of items held by the IU Libraries statewide, including books, recordings, US government publications, periodicals, and other types of material. Users can access IUCAT from any Internet-connected computer or device, whether in the libraries, on campus, or off campus.

• Next: ProQuest >>
• Last Updated: Dec 7, 2023 4:47 PM
• URL: https://guides.libraries.indiana.edu/dissertations

Social media

• Instagram for Herman B Wells Library
• Facebook for IU Libraries

Additional resources

Featured databases.

• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) OneSearch@IU
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Academic Search (EBSCO)
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) ERIC (EBSCO)
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Nexis Uni
• Resource available without restriction HathiTrust Digital Library
• Databases A-Z
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Google Scholar
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) JSTOR
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Web of Science
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Scopus
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) WorldCat

IU Libraries

• Diversity Resources
• About IU Libraries
• Alumni & Friends
• Departments & Staff
• Jobs & Libraries HR
• Intranet (Staff)
• IUL site admin

Office of Scholarly Communication

University of California

• Campus Resources
• Why Publish Open Access?
• Deposit Your Scholarly Articles
• Open Access Policies FAQ
• OA Policy Waivers
• OA Publishing Agreements and Discounts
• OA Thesis & Dissertation Policies
• Publish Your Book OA
• Transition Your Journal to OA
• Collect and share your older publications
• Publishing Funds
• eScholarship Publishing
• University of California Press
• Copyright & Publication Contracts
• Data Sharing Policies & Tools

Home » For Authors & Researchers » Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

1. Does UC require me to make my thesis/dissertation open access? 2. Can I delay open access to my thesis? 3. I’m working on my thesis/dissertation and I have copyright questions. Where can I find answers? 4. Where can I find UC Theses and Dissertations online?

1. Does UC require me to make my thesis/dissertation open access?

Several UC campuses have established policies requiring open access to the electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) written by their graduate students. As of March 25, 2020, there is now a systemwide Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations , indicating that UC “requires theses or dissertations prepared at the University to be (1) deposited into an open access repository, and (2) freely and openly available to the public, subject to a requested delay of access (’embargo’) obtained by the student.”

In accordance with these policies, campuses must ensure that student ETDs are available open access via eScholarship (UC’s open access repository and publishing platform), at no cost to students. By contrast, ProQuest, the world’s largest commercial publisher of ETDs, charges a $95 fee to make an ETD open access. Institutions worldwide have moved toward open access ETD publication because it dramatically increases the visibility and reach of their graduate research.

Policies and procedures for ETD filing, including how to delay public release of an ETD and how long such a delay can last, vary by campus. Learn more :

• UC Berkeley: Dissertation Filing Guidelines (for Doctoral Students) and Thesis Filing Guidelines (for Master’s Students)
• UC Davis: Preparing and Filing Your Thesis or Dissertation
• UC Irvine: Thesis/Dissertation Electronic Submission
• UCLA: File Your Thesis or Dissertation
• UC Merced: Dissertation/Thesis Submission
• UC Riverside: Dissertation and Thesis Submission
• UC San Diego:  Preparing to Graduate
• UCSF: Dissertation and Thesis Guidelines
• UC Santa Barbara:  Filing Your Thesis, Dissertation, or DMA Supporting Document
• UC Santa Cruz: Dissertation and Thesis Guidelines (PDF) from the Graduate Division’s Accessing Forms Online page

2. Can I delay open access to my thesis/dissertation?

Some campuses allow students to elect an embargo period before the public release of their thesis/dissertation; others require approval from graduate advisors or administrators. Visit your local graduate division’s website (linked above) for more information.

In 2013, the American Historical Association released a statement calling for graduate programs to adopt policies for up to a six year embargo for history dissertations. Many scholars found this extreme, and a variety of commentators weighed in (see, e.g., discussions in The Atlantic , The Chronicle of Higher Education , and Inside Higher Ed ).  In addition, a memo from Rosemary Joyce, the Associate Dean of the Graduate Division of UC Berkeley, listed several advantages of releasing a dissertation immediately and added that “the potential disadvantages… remain anecdotal.” In the years since the flurry of writing responding to the AHA statement, the discussion of dissertation embargoes has continued, but the issues have remained largely the same. Thus, this memo from the UC Berkeley graduate dean (2013) remains an excellent summary.

3. I’m working on my thesis/dissertation and I have copyright questions. Where can I find answers?

Students writing theses/dissertations most commonly have questions about their own copyright ownership or the use of other people’s copyrighted materials in their own work.

You automatically own the copyright in your thesis/dissertation   as soon as you create it , regardless of whether you register it or include a copyright page or copyright notice. Most students choose not to register their copyrights, though some choose to do so because they value having their copyright ownership officially and publicly recorded. Getting a copyright registered is required before you can sue someone for infringement.

If you decide to register your copyright, you can do so

• directly, through the Copyright Office website , for $35
• by having ProQuest/UMI contact the Copyright Office on your behalf, for $65.

It is common to incorporate 1) writing you have done for journal articles as part of your dissertation, and 2) parts of your dissertation into articles or books . See, for example, these articles from Wiley and Taylor & Francis giving authors tips on how to successfully turn dissertations into articles, or these pages at Sage , Springer , and Elsevier listing reuse in a thesis or dissertation as a common right of authors. Because this is a well-known practice, and often explicitly allowed in publishers’ contracts with authors, it rarely raises copyright concerns. eScholarship , which hosts over 55,000 UC ETDs, has never received a takedown notice from a publisher based on a complaint that the author’s ETD was too similar to the author’s published work.

Incorporating the works of others in your thesis/dissertation – such as quotations or illustrative images – is often allowed by copyright law. This is the case when the original work isn’t protected by copyright, or if the way you’re using the work would be considered fair use. In some circumstances, however, you will need permission from the copyright holder.  For more information, please consult the Berkeley Library’s guide to Copyright and Publishing Your Dissertation .

For more in depth information about copyright generally, visit the UC Copyright site.

4. Where can I find UC Dissertations and Theses online?

All ten UC campuses make their electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) openly accessible to readers around the world. You can view over 55,000 UC ETDs in eScholarship , UC’s open access repository. View ETDs from each campus:

• Santa Barbara

Sign up to receive OSC blog post updates

Email address:

Recent Posts

• Follow up from The Right to Deposit webinar: statement and early signatories
• Better together: BTAA Libraries, CDL, and Lyrasis commit to strengthen Diamond Open Access in the United States
• Upcoming webinar: “The Right To Deposit – Uniform Guidance to Ensure Author Compliance and Public Access”
• Fair use rights to conduct text and data mining and use artificial intelligence tools are essential for UC research and teaching
• New Open Access Book from eScholarship Publishing: The Art of Diversity by Susan Carlson

WordPress Theme by WPZOOM

Doctoral Theses

Academic Commons holds the full text of doctoral theses written since 2011 at Columbia and of theses written for a Doctorate of Education at Teachers College since mid 2018. A selection of dissertations from Union Theological Seminary, and from Columbia before 2011, are also available. You can start exploring theses by selecting one of the doctoral programs below.

• Anthropology (125)
• Anthropology and Education (26)
• Applied Anthropology (27)
• Applied Behavior Analysis (79)
• Applied Behavioral Analysis (1)
• Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics (131)
• Architecture (36)
• Art History and Archaeology (182)
• Arts and Humanities (132)
• Astronomy (63)
• Behavioral Nutrition (32)
• Biobehavioral Science (1)
• Biobehavioral Sciences (25)
• Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics (35)
• Biological Sciences (221)
• Biomedical Engineering (228)
• Biomedical Informatics (58)
• Biostatistics (66)
• Business (209)
• Cellular Physiology and Biophysics (20)
• Cellular, Molecular and Biomedical Studies (190)
• Cellular, Molecular, Structural, and Genetic Studies (12)
• Chemical Engineering (117)
• Chemical Physics (35)
• Chemistry (269)
• Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics (119)
• Classical Studies (16)
• Classics (32)
• Clinical Psychology (78)
• Cognitive Studies in Education (92)
• Communication, Media, and Learning Technologies Design (2)
• Communications (44)
• Comparative and International Education (45)
• Computer Science (252)
• Counseling Psychology (65)
• Counseling and Clinical Psychology (4)
• Curriculum and Teaching (94)
• Developmental Psychology (14)
• Earth and Environmental Engineering (89)
• Earth and Environmental Sciences (186)
• East Asian Languages and Cultures (110)
• Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (65)
• Economics (285)
• Economics and Education (71)
• Education Leadership (17)
• Education Policy (16)
• Electrical Engineering (275)
• English Education (76)
• English and Comparative Literature (181)
• Environmental Health Sciences (47)
• Epidemiology (131)
• French and Romance Philology (50)
• Genetics and Development (66)
• Geological Sciences (1)
• Geology (1)
• Germanic Languages (45)
• Health and Behavior Studies (117)
• History (264)
• History and Education (12)
• Human Development (8)
• Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (131)
• Intellectual Disabilities-Autism (13)
• Interdisciplinary Studies in Education (27)
• International and Transcultural Studies (8)
• Italian (44)
• Kinesiology (14)
• Latin American and Iberian Cultures (58)
• Materials Science and Engineering (35)
• Mathematics (142)
• Mathematics Education (76)
• Mathematics, Science, and Technology (64)
• Measurement and Evaluation (37)
• Mechanical Engineering (151)
• Microbiology, Immunology, and Infection (45)
• Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (73)
• Music (141)
• Neurobiology and Behavior (204)
• Neuroscience (4)
• Nursing (78)
• Nutritional and Metabolic Biology (55)
• Ophthalmology (1)
• Organization and Leadership (141)
• Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine (54)
• Pathology and Cell Biology (6)
• Pharmacology and Molecular Signaling (39)
• Philosophy (78)
• Philosophy and Education (42)
• Physical Disabilities (13)
• Physics (217)
• Political Science (220)
• Politics and Education (25)
• Population and Family Health (21)
• Psychology (150)
• Pure Science (1)
• Religion (69)
• School Psychology (51)
• Science Education (68)
• Slavic Languages (26)
• Slavic Languages and Literatures (19)
• Social Work (180)
• Social-Organizational Psychology (42)
• Sociology (94)
• Sociology and Education (19)
• Sociomedical Sciences (77)
• Speech and Language Pathology (28)
• Statistics (103)
• Sustainable Development (60)
• Teaching of Social Studies (27)
• Theatre (29)
• Union Theological Seminary (5)
• Urban Planning (45)

Three Umass Amherst Doctoral Students Earn 2024 Mellon/Acls Dissertation Innovation Fellowships

Three UMass Amherst doctoral students have been awarded  2024 Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Dissertation Innovation Fellowships , which support doctoral students in the humanities and interpretive social sciences as they pursue bold and innovative approaches to dissertation research

Jose Mari Lanuza in the Department of Communication,  Mabrouka M'Barek in the Department of Sociology and  Marcus P. Smith in the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies are among 45 awardees selected nationally from a pool of more than 700 applicants. Each honoree receives an award of up to $50,000 to support external mentorship that offers new perspectives on the fellow’s project and expands their advising network. With fellows pursuing their research across the country and beyond, ACLS will also provide opportunities for virtual networking and scholarly programming throughout the award terms.

Lanuza’s research explores electoral disinformation in the Philippines by considering social factors, which have often been neglected in prior research. It examines the information-seeking and meaning-making behaviors and processes of people who engage with conspiracy theories about Philippine elections and view contemporary electoral contexts as deeply intertwined with conspiracy theories. This approach illuminates disinformation vulnerability and consumption at the community level as products of micro-level social interactions and macro-level political communication. Lanuza is also a graduate fellow in the newly launched Global Technology for Social Justice Lab and co-author of a study comparing  Brazil and Philippines elections .

M'Barek’s dissertation is a comparative historical sociological project that seeks to analyze how colonization affected North African and North American semi-nomadic communities in the long term, and how these communities are re-engaging in land-based relations while celebrating their nomadic past. Drawing on indigenous methods, her research contributes to the field of sociology by conceptualizing mobility as a web of social relationships and connections with land and natural environment — deepening the understanding of the articulation between colonialism and capital accumulation.

The research pursued by Smith employs an interdisciplinary methodology, drawing from history, ethnography and landscape studies to examine the development of grassroots museums in historically Black rural, agro-urban and coastal communities as sites of community empowerment and resistance. His project investigates and recounts the narratives of museum inception, community mobilization, resource acquisition, curatorial decision-making and establishing the museums as viable and sustainable institutions in different social, political and economic contexts.

The ACLS launched the fellowship program in 2023 with the support of the  Mellon Foundation to advance a vision for doctoral education that prioritizes openness to new methods and sources, underrepresented voices and perspectives and scholarly experimentation. The awards are designed to accelerate change in the norms of humanistic scholarship by recognizing those who take risks in the modes, methods and subjects of their research.

More information about these other fellowship programs offered by the ACLS can be found at https://www.acls.org/fellowship-grant-programs .

Global footer

• ©2024 University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Site policies
• Non-discrimination notice
• Accessibility
• Terms of use

Kevin Dunnell Featured in Forbes Article

Creative Commons

Attribution 4.0 International

Kevin Dunnell

May 28, 2024

• Kevin Dunnell Research Assistant

Share this article

Covering a talk that PhD student Kevin Dunnell gave as part of an "Imagination in Action" event last month, John Werner, a contributing writer for Forbes, highlighted Dunnell and his work for an article on AI, text, and multimodal data.  The article reads in part:

"Sometimes it seems to me like a lot of our research goes into how to take one form of data and make it into another. To frame it a different way, it's about interdisciplinary research and identifying use cases.

We’re seeing a lot of demonstrations and presentations that put this front and center. For example, Kevin Dunnell, a PhD student in Viral Communications at the MIT Media Lab, is working on a project called Latent Lab, a tool that uses AI to help reimagine the user experience of our file systems and how we explore the digital content we consume, create, and communicate.

“LLMs have provided a huge benefit for accessing information and generating text through a chat-based interface,” he said in a recent talk about expanding the interface and re-envisioning what’s possible in research.

Ten years ago, he said, Bret Victor gave a talk on “Thinking the Unthinkable,” and it inspired him to make progress in “upgrading the channels of thinking” for users. As a concrete example, Bret provided the double helix structure of DNA, explaining that James Watson and Francis Crick conceptualized it by interacting with physical metal models—a higher channel of thinking than the symbolic methods typical of biochemists at the time.

Latent Lab, he said, aims to help “upgrade the user’s channel of thinking” by visually and semantically organizing unstructured digital documents. He referred to “embeddings,” numerical representations of text, a compression interface with interactive visualization, and categorical color coding. “You can see how intermingled they are,” he said referring to Media Lab research projects processed by his system and portrayed in the visual graph “and it really shows how interdisciplinary we are here at the Media Lab… once you have data in the (system) we can do a few interesting things.” In aid of explaining the utility, Dunnell talked about system features like ‘progressive disclosure’ for transparency of individual documents that collectively suggest high-level organizational themes and ‘knowledge evolution’ to help illustrate how themes evolve over time."

Latent Lab: Large Language Models for Knowledge Exploration

Dawei shen dissertation defense.

LocationMIT Media Lab, E14-633 DescriptionWe are exploring the design and creation of information markets with a goal of bringing an electr…

Kwan Hong Lee Thesis Defense

LocationMIT Media Lab, E14-633 DescriptionIt is an open question how our day-to-day decisions will be affected by the always-on connection …

EMC Lecture Series: David P. Reed

LocationCambridge, MA DescriptionPLEASE RSVP to Masson_Robert--at--emc--dot--com if you plan to attend.In the 1960s, MIT launched Project M…