Generally speaking, the ETD process begins once the student submits an application for graduation.  From that point, they will need to schedule a committee defense and provide a working version of their ETD for the committee to review. After the committee provides their review of the content of the ETD, the student should then ensure the ETD meets the formatting guidelines for the University of Pittsburgh.

The ETD will then be submitted for review by the ETD Student Services Staff person via the ETD Administrator site of their graduating school. This staff person will be responsible for approving the ETD, making sure that the file formatting is correct, the links work, etc. After the ETD has been approved, it will then be sent for a final review by their defense committee via the ETD Administrator site.  After those decisions are recorded, the ETD Student Services staff member will deliver the ETD to ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global database and D-Scholarship@Pitt, the university's institutional repository.*

* The School of Public Health's Master's Essays and the David C. Frederick Honors College Undergraduate Theses will be submitted via D-Scholarship@Pitt directly and approved by the aforementioned Student Services staff persons. They will not appear in ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.