View All Pages

Module 5: ProQuest ETDAdministrator in Detail

ProQuest ETDAdministrator in Detail

At the UW, students are required to submit an ETD through the UW ETD Administrator Site. ProQuest ETD Administrator is a platform that helps to manage the submission of ETDs and does away with the requirement for the submission of physical copies of your work.

ProQuest ETD Administrator will walk you through a number of different tabs where you will upload your work, add descriptive metadata, and make decisions about how and when to make your work available. The materials we have covered in this course will help you make decisions on the following tabs:

  • PQ and IR Publishing Options (two tabs)
  • ProQuest and University Agreements (two sub-tabs)
  • Creative Commons
  • Register U.S. Copyright

Access and embargo in ProQuest and ResearchWorks

The Graduate School's Deposit and Dissemination Policy states that your ETD must eventually be made available openly on the web. Your ETD will be hosted in both UW's institutional repository, ResearchWorks Links to an external site., and in ProQuest's ETD Database Links to an external site..

Consequently, you will need to indicate your choices in TWO sections about how your ETD is made available. Most students choose to make their work available immediately, but you can choose to limit access temporarily before making it available openly.

When you submit your dissertation you will be asked to choose your access level for the two places your dissertation will end up: ProQuest, which is a subscription database, and ResearchWorks, which is UW’s open access institutional repository. The default options for ResearchWorks are to 1) make your work immediately open, 2) have access constrained to only the UW community (via NetID) for up to 5 years (note that this option still serves as public disclosure for the purpose of patent applications), or 3) completely closed for up to one year. For ProQuest, you can delay access for up to 2 years, although we can work with you to extend that if you need more time.

ProQuest and University Agreements

UW ETD's are distributed by both ProQuest and the UW Libraries. Both will make your work available (ProQuest through its Digital Dissertations database and print sales if you choose to allow that, and the UW Libraries through its ResearchWorks Links to an external site. service) and preserve it for the future.

In order to legally do this, both ProQuest and UW require that you grant them rights that are protected under copyright law. Both UW and ProQuest ask for non-exclusive licenses to your work - which means that you retain your copyright and are able to enter into agreements around your work with other parties. Both agreements also ask you to certify that the work is your own, and that you are not infringing the rights of others. See the ProQuest agreement Links to an external site. and the UW Libraries Agreement.

Creative Commons

You will also be asked whether you would like to assign a Creative Commons license to your work. Choose among the six available licenses, or decline and retain all rights. This is a very personal decision, and there is no right answer. In general, we urge students to apply the most permissive license they are comfortable with, because the more open the license, the greater the reach and impact you enable.  

Need a refresher for Creative Commons options? Check out Module 3: Sharing in Detail.

Submission and Payment

Included in the Submission and Payment section is an option to Register U.S. Copyright. Do you need to register your copyright? No, but there are certain benefits of registering. More information from the Copyright Office Links to an external site. is available. You may register directly with the Copyright Office Links to an external site. for $35 or you can have ProQuest register for you for $55.

 Resources from this module

Select Next below to continue ⬇︎