Theses and Dissertations
Important upcoming dates:
- Aug 12, 2024 - deadline for degree completion requirements for an August diploma
- Nov 1, 2024 - deadline for oral defense and approval of final content and language for December graduation
Note: Many links in these descriptions are all located in Blackboard sites, and therefore, password protected. To access these sites, a UTHSC NetID and password along with site membership is required. If you are a student not required to provide a thesis or dissertation or a graduate faculty member interested in the content of these resources, you may request access via Blackboard.
Theses (for Master's degrees) and dissertations (for Doctoral degrees) must adhere to content guidelines established by the student's faculty advisor and committee and format guidelines established by the College of Graduate Health Sciences and the University of Tennessee.
All Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) students must provide an electronic dissertation as part of their degree requirements. Specified Master degree (MS) students are required to submit an electronic thesis as part of their degree requirements.
It is the responsibility of the research committee and student to ensure that the scientific and English language content of a thesis/dissertation are as accurate as possible; it is the responsibility of the student and College to ensure that the thesis/dissertation format is as accurate as possible. The final version of a thesis/dissertation submitted to and approved by the College is the official version and will not be changed in any way (including substantive and typographic changes).
For students who are required to provide an Electronic Thesis or Dissertation (ETD)...
- Begin the process by accessing Blackboard – http://blackboard.uthsc.edu with your UTHSC NetID and password. We endeavor to automatically enroll all students
who must provide an ETD into the Blackboard ETDLP course at the time of matriculation.
This course contains all the guides and training instructions for the ETD process.
However, if you do not see this ETDLP course; “ ETDLP: ETD Learning Portal (ETD)”,
contact the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs (ltague@uthsc.edu) with this issue or submit an enrollment request directly from your Blackboard login.
It is IMPORTANT that the student carefully and completely follows all the instructions
on the homepage of the Blackboard ETDLP course site.
Note: Students will save time and frustration by accessing and following these directions during the academic term prior to your graduation term for Master of Science students and at least two terms before your graduation term for Doctor of Philosophy students. - When students are ready to begin the writing and formatting process, they should email the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs (ltague@uthsc.edu) and the ETD Formatting Manager (shancoc3@uthsc.edu) so that a private, collaborative development and review group can be created for use in the ETD development environment selected using either Overleaf LaTeX or Microsoft Word. For Overleaf LaTeX the development and review process are built into each template project. For using CGHS approved Microsoft Word templates a private Microsoft Teams Channel is created for each student, and the Team Channel is populated with the student, mentor, ETD review manager, and the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs. Documents for reviews are uploaded to the Files area of these private Channels. When using Team Channels, communication is conducted via conversations instead of using email.
- ETD Distribution: After final approval of an ETD, two sites of distribution are used to satisfy the
University of Tennessee Board of Trustees regulations concerning thesis and dissertations.
“A student must, as a condition of a degree award, grant royalty-free permission to
the university to reproduce and publicly distribute, including by electronic and digital
technologies now known or developed in the future, on a non-commercial basis, copies
of the thesis or dissertation.” However, short (six month, one-year, or two-year) temporary embargoes are allowed.
ETDs are submitted to the ProQuest repository; a subscription or public (for a student
fee) service, and/or to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center Institutional
Repository (http://etd.uthsc.edu) managed via an Elsevier-Digital Commons server which fully satisfies the Board of
Trustees public distribution mandate. ETD students should create a ProQuest account,
if required, at the beginning of their estimated academic term of graduation. The
detailed instructions for creating a ProQuest account are in the ETDLP-ETD process
guide: The "ETD Review & Approval Process (RAAP)" leads students through the ETD review-revision
steps and includes ProQuest account setup plus instructions for other required paperwork".
There are two “ETD Mixer Meetings” annually (in February and September), which provide updates and general information about the current ETD process with an open question and answer (Q&A) forum. ETD students should attend at least one of these Mixers prior to writing their ETD.
When students are ready to begin the writing and formatting process, they should email the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs (ltague@uthsc.edu) and the ETD Formatting & Review Manager (shancoc3@uthsc.edu) so that a private, collaborative development and review group can be created for their use
Students should create the required ProQuest account one month prior to submitting their ETD for a preliminary review. The detailed instructions for creating a ProQuest account are in The ETD Review & Approval Process (RAAP) available in the Bb ETDLD under #2, Guides, etc.; it also leads students through the ETD review-revision steps plus provides instructions for other required paperwork."
After final approval of an ETD, two sites of distribution are used in accordance with the University of Tennessee Board of Regents regulations concerning thesis and dissertations stating that these ETDs must ultimately be open to the public. ETDs are submitted to the ProQuest repository for either a subscription service or for and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center Institutional Repository (http://etd.uthsc.edu) managed by Elsevier-Digital Commons, which fully satisfies the Board of Regents public mandate
Critical information: If the information in an ETD undergoes patent review, the student must inform the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs via email and request an embargo when submitting the ETD for a format review. An equivalent embargo must be noted in the student’s ProQuest account. See the publishing process guide (RAAP) in the Blackboard ETDLP site for specifics.
Requirements: Before the formal dissertation defense, students must submit the digital form titled ETD Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and the ETD Approval Page so that this can be approved and digitally submitted to the Advisor and Research Committee for their digital approval as soon as corrections, if requested, have been completed after the defense. Templates for the ETD MOU and ETD Approval Page are available in the Bb ETDLP Bb forWord and in Overleaf LaTeX projects.
Current degrees and majors for the ET/D Signature Page: Students in the Biomedical Sciences should use only the wording “Biomedical Sciences” for their major. For purposes of the signature page, Biomedical Sciences tracks are called “concentrations.” Listing the concentration is required if CGHS lists a specialty/track for your program.
Current degrees:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Master of Science
- Master of Dental Science
Current majors:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Biomedical Sciences
- Dental Sciences
- Epidemiology
- Health Outcomes and Policy Research
- Nursing Science
- Pharmaceutical Sciences
- Pharmacology
- Speech and Hearing Science
Current tracks:
- within Biomedical Engineering:
- Biomechanics, Movement Science, and Rehabilitation
- Biomaterials and Regenerative Technology
- Biosensors and Electrophysiology
- Cellular Biochemical Responses
- within Biomedical Sciences:
- Cancer and Developmental Biology
- Cell Biology and Physiology
- Genetics, Genomics, and Informatics
- Microbiology, Immunology, and Biochemistry
- Molecular and Systems Pharmacology
- Neuroscience
- Regenerative and Rehabilitation Sciences
- within Dental Sciences:
- Endodontics
- Orthodontics
- Pediatric Dentistry
- Periodontology
- Prosthodontics
- within Health Outcomes and Policy Research:
- Pharmacoeconomics
- Health Policy
- Health Services Research
- Health Informatics
- within Pharmaceutical Sciences:
- Bioanalysis
- Medicinal Chemistry
- Pharmaceutics
- Pharmacometrics
- within Speech and Hearing Science:
- Audiology
- Hearing Science
- Speech and Language Pathology
- Speech-Language Science
(June 2024)
There are three Guides available in the Blackboard (Bb) ETDLP: ETD Learning Portal: The ETD Formatting Guide--Word, the ETD Review and Approval Process (RAAP) Guide, and the Overleaf LaTeX Formatting Guide. The LaTeX Formatting Guide, available as a PDF file in Bb, is also available as a shared read-only project to all who will be using Overleaf for ETD development and reviews. The shared OL ETD project guide is a continual work in progress which allows the users to see and use all the example LaTeX code that goes with the shared project.
We have two student-selectable template-based methods for ETD creation and format review; ETD Word templates used in conjunction with Microsoft Teams with collaboration utilities and an Overleaf LaTeX ETD project template which includes robust collaborative tools.
Instructional videos for Microsoft Word and Overleaf LaTeX along with Word and LaTeX ETD template exercises are delivered as a digital resource only. ETD Mixers via Zoom are provided annually In February and September as question-and-answer sessions for everything concerning ETDs and the ETD process. In addition to digital communication tools available via Bb, Microsoft Teams, and Overleaf, we also utilize Zoom and Microsoft Meet for real-time collaborative communication. A Bb (ETDLP) calendar is maintained to provide both estimated starting times for ETD processes, fixed deadlines, and event schedules.
Electronic theses and dissertations have been a requirement of the CGHS since January 2007, and select ETDs have been available by choice since 1998. ETDs were published on a university web server until 2016 when the database was moved to our UTHSC Institutional Repository provided by Elsevier (Digital Commons). You can click here to browse the CGHS electronic theses and dissertations repository.
For policy and standards assistance:
Larry Tague, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs
920 Madison Avenue, Suite 807 (CGHS)
Phone: 901.448.7152
Email: ltague@uthsc.edu
Zoom (http://tennessee.zoom.us): Larry Tague Zoom Room - https://tennessee.zoom.us/j/9181046321 Note: For an online real-time Zoom meeting, please email and make an appointment.
For format review assistance:
Shirley Hancock, ET/D Review and Publication Manager
Off-campus
Phone: 901.757.2663
Email: shirleyhancock@gmail.com or shancoc3@uthsc.edu
Zoom (http://tennessee.zoom.us): Shirley Hancock Zoom Room - https://tennessee.zoom.us/j/7677746402 Note: For an online real-time Zoom meeting, please email and make an appointment.
In cooperation with your research advisor, schedule your oral defense with your committee and program chair; notify the CGHS Office of the date, time, title, and location of your defense. The defense must be scheduled early enough to allow you time to make any required ETD revisions, have them reviewed by your committee, and get digital approval of your ETD Memorandum of Understanding and Approval page. Be sure to allow for committee members who are out of town, at conferences, on vacation, etc.
Distribute your thesis/dissertation to every member of your committee for review
Take the Report of Final Examination form to your defense to obtain signatures from your committee.
After you have successfully defended, communicate with Assistant Dean Washington (fmartin7@uthsc.edu or +1 901 448 4577 in the CGHS Office to discuss graduation requirements and to complete paperwork.
Note for students at St. Jude: After you have successfully defended your dissertation, you must also make an appointment for an exit interview with the .
Before the thesis/dissertation deadline, deliver one signed copy of the "Report of Final Examination" form with original signatures of your committee to the CGHS Office. All committee members must have signed or digitally approved this form.