BYU continues to be a leader in technology as graduate students can now submit theses and dissertations electronically.

"There are at least two major advantages of electronic formats," said Bonnie Brinton, dean of Graduate Studies.

Electronic formats of theses provide worldwide access to the students' research and allow students to utilize more creative and flexible means for presenting their work, she said.

Electronic submissions permit students to include hypertext links to all kinds of multimedia components, such as music and audio clips, simulations and larger landscape pages, said Selby Herrin, research analyst and special projects coordinator for the Office of Graduate Studies.

"It would be very beneficial for the reader to watch a video clip of a difficult concept instead of just reading about it," said Tom Ricks, a graduate student in math education, from Highland, Utah Co.

While many departments are encouraging the electronic submission of theses and dissertations, paper submissions will not be completely eliminated any time soon, said Herrin.

"We are still in the pilot phases," Herrin said.

Eleven electronic theses are already submitted, while around seven others are currently in the submission process, he said.

Brent Weight, a MBA student, submitted an electronic thesis in mechanical engineering.

"It's great that people can see my thesis without having to be in Utah," he said.

Electronic submission is fairly easy if students have a good background using word processors, Herrin said. Students need to have some training using templates, paragraph styles, and headings.

"We're trying to learn all the issues and problems that aren't known readily," said Herrin.

Properly converting files to pdf, putting odd sized pages in the middle of the text, and putting the whole theses in the same format are some of the problems that students have come across, he said.

The Office of Graduate Studies has a Web site, http://www.byu.edu/gradstudies/etd, to help students create their electronic thesis or dissertation and work through computer problems.

Theses and dissertations on the digital library collection can be found on the Web site http://etd.byu.edu.

Copyright Brigham Young University 8 Jan 2003