University graduates and doctoral students now have a new way of submitting theses and dissertations. Beginning in the fall of 2005, master’s theses and doctoral dissertations will be submitted electronically rather than in print. This change was decided as a result of Ohio State University creating an archive for any theses or dissertations that were completed by students in any Ohio university. Dr. Jude Edminster, a member of the Graduate College Committee on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, said the University wanted to make this change for many reasons. First, the students are now able to use multi-media in their theses. Also, the theses would be more accessible online than they were in print. “The mission of a scholar is to make knowledge available, and this fulfills that mission” Edminster said. To prepare for the change from print to online publication, the University will implement a pilot project for this year. Three academic units: Higher Education, English, and Geology will begin submitting their theses this year rather than next. “The point of the pilot project is to prepare the campus for the requirements and to work out any difficulties along the way,” Edminster said. By doing the pilot project, it allows for a year’s worth of faculty and student input, comments and concerns Edminster said. She said she is confident that the pilot program will go well because the Committee is ready for anything. They want “problems to pop-up so they can be worked out” before the rest of the student body participates in the program. Edminster said that the change does not have to be a drastic one. It takes very little skill or effort to submit the papers electronically. The students do not have to use the multi-media, it is just an option for the students that would like to. The University already has one student who has submitted her thesis electronically. Melanie Bergolc was almost finished with her thesis when she found out it needed to be submitted electronically. She said she was worried she would have to make a lot of changes, but she actually only had to change very little. “The only thing I had to do once I created the pdf file, was to allow links to my web pages and create bookmarks within the thesis. You structure the manuscript exactly how you would submitting it as a paper document,” Bergolc said. Bergolc went on to say that she thinks the program is a change for the better. It does not waste paper, it’s cost efficient and surprisingly easy she said. In addition to Bergolc’s praises, Edminster says that there are a few downsides to the change. For one, there may be some resistance to the change because of the potential use of technology that not everyone is familiar with. Also, since the theses will be different, the process used to evaluate the theses will have to change too.