This is a working draft, combosed by Jordan Lee and Brian Yandell. Return to ETD Page . In the future, dissertations may include material that would not fit in a paper dissertation, such as audio, video, virtual reality, applets, etc. They can link to established data repository in the public domain which were used in your thesis. Changes as standards are settled may affect submission and future access.
Immediate access can give competitive colleagues an edge.
This can be overcome to some degree by delayed access. This varies from journal to journal and discipline to discipline, and is in a great state of flux at this time. We believe this will not be an issue for electronic dissertations in the long run, but at present this is uncertain. Electronic publishing can interfere with publication of a whole thesis as a book. Some publishing houses will not consider works that have appeared in any form on the web, even if it might undergo substantial revision before book publication.