Call for Proposals

The USETDA and the NDLTD are co-hosting ETD 2025, the 28^th international symposium on electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) and USETDA 2025, the 15^th national US conference on ETDs, to be held as a joint virtual event via Zoom September 25-26, 2025. This conference is co-organized by the USETDA (United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association) and the NDLTD (Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations).

Scope: Through our call for proposals, we are seeking plenary panel presentations, breakout sessions, flash talks, user group meetings, poster presentations and workshops/tutorials in which participants can join live in interactive discussions online. We welcome your experiences as well as how to provide new capacities to re-envision the future to provide global outreach, best practices and policies. All ETD 2025 Symposium papers, posters and slide presentations will be published on the NDLTD Document Archive. Selected papers will be included in a Special Issues of the Journal of Electronic Theses and Dissertations “J-ETD“. At least one author of each accepted paper is required to be registered for, and present the work at the conference.

Important Dates

• Call for proposals
  • Announcement: December 20, 2024
  • Submission deadline: March 14, 2025
• Presenter notifications: May 2, 2025
• Registration: May 16 – September 22, 2025
• Conference Dates: September 25-26, 2025

Deadlines: Proposal abstracts should be submitted on or before March 14, 2025 to be considered for the conference program. Presentations, papers, posters and video recordings should be submitted on or before September 18, 2025 for inclusion in the conference proceedings.

Theme: The conference theme, “Exploring Global Connections”, will delve into technology and academic processes as they impact various aspects of the creation and dissemination of scholarly work. We will examine the present use and availability of ETDs and related initiatives. We will also explore new and emerging ETD practices, needs, and influences that impact administrative, graduate school, and library professionals. Some areas for possible investigation include:

• Demonstrating ways in which scholarly communications can be more effectively disseminated to explore global connections
• Identifying strategies and best practices as we educate stakeholders on new technologies including artificial intelligence applications and adapt our processes
  
• Access and accessibility considerations including embargoes, open access, ease of access, and discoverability of ETDs in repositories
  
• Understanding and responding to the changing needs of students, graduate schools and libraries in a quickly evolving landscape
  
• Advocating for access to the tools and support that students, graduate school and library professionals, and information technology personnel need to complete the thesis and digital publishing process

Proposals should reflect one or more of the following three categories: Research Practices, Streamlining ETD Processing, and the Impact of ETDs. Presenters are encouraged to use the examples under the subtopics as inspiration, but are not limited to these ideas and can expand upon them or generate new ones based on the subtopic themes. Please see the list below for topic ideas. 

I. Research Practices

1. Alternative ETDs
   • Faculty and graduate students’ perspectives on what an alternative thesis or dissertation is, what does it look like and what does it do? What are the considerations to keep in mind? Who supports the process? Who approves? How is it preserved and shared?
   • Processing and archiving multimedia ETDs including technical considerations and workflow models related to the examination and preservation of novel dissertation forms for non-pdf/digital dissertation deposit and preservation
     
2. Issues surrounding metadata, privacy and approval processes for “publishing” ETDs in the IR and how the policies benefit students
   • Application of OAI PMH to build subject metadata repositories
   • Direct object identifiers and how institutions acquire and use them in creating persistent links to their ETDs. This could be a workshop or tutorial including platforms such as CrossRef, DataCite and ORCID
     
3. Artificial Intelligence and how it will impact research in the future
   • GenAI, LLMs and research integrity including appropriate use of AI applications in the research and writing processes, considerations of accurate information and development of AI applications as beneficial cultural tools
   • Best practices to teach students and faculty how to use GenAI or other AI applications to formulate queries as the basis of research for literature review
   • Best practices to develop “prompt engineering” techniques for relevant and concise searching
   • Copyright implications for GenAI-derived content used in ETDs
   • Resources and tools for reference librarians assisting graduate students with research literature reviews

II. Streamlining ETD Processing

1. Recent developments in AI
   • GenAI and LLM applications to help and next steps to manage ETD workflows.
     • Which tasks could be automated (and/or should not be automated) in ETD reviewing practices?
     • Are institutions and higher ed administration looking at replacing human review input by GenAI?
     • What is the impact of AI on the professional role of reviewers?
     • The development of GenAI-driven research and editorial review tools and resources for reviewers
     • How might increased, methodical use of LLMs conflict with mission statements that include commitments to resource conservation/environmental stewardship?
     • The impact of AI on the academic library as an organization and impact on professional staff
     • Professionalization of the field (e.g.) what titles do people have, typical salaries, how does one advance, skills and motivation needed to work in the profession, validating purpose for these positions in the graduate college / library
     • AI developments in automation for ETD management
       
2. Formatting and accessibility
   • Digital accessibility tips and tricks
   • Handling of formatting and accessibility in non-traditional documents, media and LaTeX around the world
   • Addressing the formatting revolt brewing on campuses.
     • How can you foster the adoption of accessibility standards with minimal resistance from students and faculty?
     • Tips to manage faculty objections to your ETD formatting requirements
     • Tips to make templates ease the process of meeting accessibility requirements
     • Formatting software/technologies and support (LaTeX, Word, Adobe, OverLeaf, etc.); support for staff/faculty/student on accessing and using technology; accessibility of technologies to use and also on the product produced
       
3. Best practices
   • Guidance for students and researchers on creating qualitative ETDs.
   • Best practices/documentation/workflow sharing and development.
   • Best ways to motivate and engage students’ interest in creating professionally presentable and accessible ETDs.
   • How various institutions reach the graduate population regarding formatting, milestone completion, and other requirements
   • Practical solutions for people who are in an office of one person
   • ETD signature page options–ink, electronic, both?
   • Guidelines for duplication, plagiarism and copyright detection practices, GenAI-detection practices, and major pain-points in workflow
   • GenAI-based authoring tools to assist in the writing process
   • Supporting the mental health of the student (i.e. dealing with imposter syndrome, procrastination, and perfectionism, improving organizational skills, finding time to relax, meeting deadlines, relationships with faculty and peers)
   • Customer service excellence in the thesis office
   • Best practices for ETD programs, including guidance for students and researchers on creating qualitative ETDs.
     • Best practices/documentation/workflow sharing and development.
     • Best ways to motivate and engage students’ interest in creating professionally presentable and accessible ETDs.
   • Advancements in ETD technology and tools, data management and preservation for ETDs
   • The majority of the technology used by librarians and information professionals was developed in computer science and other fields. Innovation in ETD preservation, sharing, best practices, and something exceptional must be our main priorities. This area should cover:
     • AI and emerging technologies pose a danger to ETDs. AI and its difficulties with ETDs.
     • The sustainable development goals and other UN and affiliated organ’s visions heavily rely on ETDs, including:
       1. Role and impact of ETDs on 4th industrial revolution (4IR) or forthcoming 5th industrial revolution (5IR)
       2. How ETDs create a knowledge-based society
     • User group meetings (i.e. ProQuest ETD Administrator, Vireo, CGS, MAGS, ETD formatting, community engagement, regional representatives, etc.)
       

III. The Impact of ETDs

1. Technology and its impacts on ETDs
   • What are future ETD trends? How can we simplify the ETD process for students and enrich the intellectual content in ETDs to enhance research discovery and development?
   • Use of GenAI, LLMs and other technologies to support the most efficient access to ETDs
   • Using metadata appropriately makes search and discovery easier
   • The larger global impact of GenAI on research discovery and dissemination
     
2. Quality factor
   • Focus on student success and data analytics
   • Institutional promotion of high quality ETDs as a goal for ETD staff
     • Should ETD formatting quality be a restrictive criteria for ETD display and what are the pros and cons?
     • Should ETDs be professional in form and function?
     • Should ETD quality be a criteria for posting?
       
3. Relationships with institutional repositories
   • Best practices for retrospective digitization of print archives of theses and dissertations
   • Best approaches to form links between the thesis office (graduate school/college) and the libraries (or other stakeholders) and facilitating and maximizing connections between them
   • Embargoes (why and how are they used; do institutions have reasons and clear policies for the embargo periods offered, or do they just go with (e.g.)  ProQuest’s options to simplify the process
   • Copyright, embargo practices, working with technology transfer on patent protection, inclusion of published articles and manuscripts in ETDs
   • Institutional repository user group sessions including the following (or a subset of the IR systems listed below):
     • CONTENTdm (OCLC), Dataverse, Digital Commons (BePress/Elsevier), DigiTool (Ex Libris / ProQuest), DiscoveryGarden, DSpace Direct, DSpace (DuraSpace), EPrints (University of Southampton), Figshare, Greenstone Digital Library Software, Haplo, Hyku, Invenio, Open Repository (Atmire), Samvera, SimpleDL, SobekCM (University of Florida), Thesis Commons (Center for Open Science), VITAL (Innovative Interfaces)

We welcome the following types of proposal submissions:

Poster sessions – peer reviewed

Posters introduce late-breaking results, work in progress, or research that is best communicated in an interactive or graphical format. Poster presentations are 10 minutes in length. Two types of posters are encouraged:

• Research posters presenting new and promising work or preliminary results of ongoing projects
• “Best practices” posters presenting the practical implementations of an organization’s practices or innovations

The content of the poster should clearly point out how the research or best practice contributes to innovative thought or design within the field, and how it addresses key challenges, as well as the potential impact on the participant’s organization and/or practices in the field.

Joint submissions from students, librarians, graduate school administrators and other professionals demonstrating different perspectives on a single issue are particularly encouraged. Posters are expected to foster discussion in a personal and less formal setting. Poster presenters should submit an abstract of 350 words or less for consideration. Virtual participants may provide a pre-recorded video of their poster presentation prior to conference time. For additional guidance, download our poster session Resource Page (.doc file).

Breakout-session presentations and panel discussions – peer reviewed

Single session presentations and panels are 50 minutes long and are invited on topics that focus on the themes of the conference. 

For single-session presentations, please submit a proposal of up to 350 words, providing a summary of the presentation topic and the qualifications of the speaker.

Panels must have a cohesive theme and promote lively interaction between panelists and audience members. Please submit a panel proposal up to 350 words, providing an overview of the issues to be discussed by the panel and brief bios of each of the panelists. Proposals should only list panelists who have agreed to participate and shall indicate the qualifications and contribution that each panelist will offer.

For optional full-length papers, please submit an abstract of up to 250 words. Additional information about full-length papers is available in our proposal submission guidelines listed below.

Flash Talks

Flash talks present information about best practices, innovative strategies, processes, tools, events, etc. in 5 minutes and may include up to two slides. Flash talks are a great way to share best practices as well as strategies or tools that enhance and support your students and your processes. For example, you may share a new tool or resource that you’ve discovered, discuss a new way of reaching out to students, give a tip that has made your job easier.

For flash talks, please submit a proposal of up to 150 words, providing a summary of the presentation topic and the qualifications of the speaker.

Conference workshops and tutorials – peer reviewed

Conference workshops and tutorials are invited on important topics that focus on the themes of the conference that need to be addressed in-depth. Suggested topics include workshops that are practical in nature and focused on best practices for GenAI guidance, access and/or accessibility development, implementation and guidance, Additionally we are seeking to offer an “ETDs for Beginners” primer workshop for rookies and as a refresher for veterans in the field. Workshops should provide participants with opportunities to engage with study materials, the presenter(s) and workshop participants through discussions in order to broaden and deepen understanding in a particular area. Workshops may range in length from 1.5 to 2 hours.

Please submit a proposal of up to 350 words, providing a summary of the workshop topic and the qualifications of the speaker.

Resources

• Selection Rubric (Reviewer guidelines)
• Code of Conduct
• Sponsorship Guidance

Proposal Submission Guidelines

Presentations are invited on themes in line with the call for proposals, including emerging issues, trends and opinions on controversial issues, analyses of tools and techniques, and contrasting viewpoints in complementary professional areas. By submitting your documents to this conference, the authors agree to Creative Commons attribution licensing.

Full-Length papers, if desired, should include a structured abstract of no more than 250 words and text of no more than 5,000 words (approximately 10 pages single spaced). Full-Length Papers undergo a double-blind peer review process. Full papers should report on mature work, or efforts that have reached an important milestone. Selected papers will be included in a Special Issue of the Journal of Electronic Theses and Dissertations J-ETD. All full papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. Please follow the conventions of an APA 7th Edition Professional Paper (omit all author information, which will be included in the cover letter submitted as a separate file).The manuscript must be submitted as a Microsoft Word file or a Rich Text Format (RTF) file. For additional information, visit https://scholarworks.uaeu.ac.ae/j-etd/author_guidelines.html.

For the conference proceedings, we also encourage authors to submit PowerPoint presentation files as a supplement to the paper if applicable, or solely PowerPoint files if authors are not interested in submitting a detailed paper about their presentation. PowerPoint files may be accompanied by supplementary files if applicable. All proceedings files should be submitted in pdf format.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us by email at: info@usetda.org.

Once you have prepared your proposal according to the above instructions, please visit [URL forthcoming] to submit it for review.

ETD 2025