SEAS Pilot Project

In Spring 1997, Professor Jim French, UVa Computer Science Department, directed a pilot project in which 6 fourth-year engineering students submitted their theses in electronic format. One of the students, Mariahna Moore, described the process in Electronic Submission of Undergraduate Theses: A Case Study for the Implementation of a University-Wide Program for the Electronic Submission and On-Line Archiving of Theses and Dissertations and developed a prototype.

Students worked on their theses according to the guidelines of Technology, Culture, and Communication (TCC) Undergraduate Thesis Manual, and used Adobe Acrobat 3.0.1 to convert their files into PDF or Portable Document Format.The students used their favorite word processing, page-layout, graphics or business program to create their document, then used Acrobat to convert into PDF files.

In Fall 1997 the small pilot evolved into a full-scale project resulting from a proposal by the Library to TCC, Technology, Communication and Culture Division, that a pilot project be conducted whereby all fourth-year engineering students would be asked to submit their theses in electronic format instead of paper. In addition to the Library, the TCC Division, and the School of Engineering, this project was sponsored by ITC, Information Technology and Communication.

The project was scaled back in January 2003 due to budget cuts. At that time it was determined that students could submit their theses and dissertations on a CD-ROM or DVD that would be cataloged, archived, and put in the stacks to be checked out; but that the Library would no longer keep a copy online.