Frequently Asked Questions

Embargoes allow you to delay public access to your work for a period of 6 months, 1 year, or 2 years, based on your needs. These are generally advised if you have a publishing agreement for your entire manuscript or if your research is of a sensitive nature. Creative Writing MFA and PhD students also have the option of filing for a permanent embargo. Situations where an embargo would be used include:

• Your work is associated with pending patents.
• Your document contains sensitive information, data or restricted research pertaining to a third party (e.g. a private company, the state department, etc.) that must be reviewed and approved by that third party in advance of publication.
• You have been offered or anticipate a book deal, or other publication deal, and as terms of the agreement or possible publication agreement your work may not be published on any other site in advance their release or for some agreed upon period of time.
• Your department has advised you to get an embargo.

Embargoes can only be granted with the signature endorsement of your dissertation advisor or Director of Graduate Studies on your ETD Release form. By signing, your advisor agrees that your submission will be held from public access for up to 2 years. More information about embargoes is provided by the Office of Graduate Studies.

Yes. For students who hold the exam in-person, gathering signatures in-person following the exam is by far the easiest.  But if you are holding a remote exam, or there are one or more members participating remotely, they can sign digitally using a certified PDG digital signature.  If you don't have access to AdobeSign, you can set up an account with PandaDoc, a free web-based digital signature service. More information about setting up a free personal account can be found in "My Graduation Checklist".

No. In order to make sure all of your graduation documents are correctly accounted for, they must be submitted through this Canvas site.  If you don't have access to a scanner, high quality image files are accepted, so you can take a picture of the document and upload that to your checklist.

As part of the ProQuest submission process, authors can choose to register their copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office. We generally suggest that people register their copyrights if they can afford to do so, but it’s not mandatory. UMI can file a copyright on your behalf with the Library of Congress for a fee. Please see KU Libraries' Copyright for Dissertations and Theses page for more information, or contact the KU Libraries team copyright@ku.edu for assistance.

Please visit the Office of Graduate Studies website for recommended binding services.

It is your responsibility to submit your electronic thesis or dissertation (ETD) by the Application for Graduation deadline, and to ensure that it meets all ProQuest and University formatting guidelines. COGA will verify that the ETD is submitted prior to the deadline, as this is a requirement of graduation. COGA then reviews all ETDs after the close of the term. If there are any formatting edits that need to be made, we will send you an email outlining exactly what needs to be fixed, and will give a new deadline (typically a few weeks) to complete the edits. That deadline for edits in no way impacts your graduation. You meet the graduation requirement simply by submitting the electronic document to ProQuest.

COGA delivers ETD submissions to ProQuest for publishing after the degree certification process is complete. Your work will not be available through ProQuest until after that time. Once it has been delivered, ProQuest may take up to 12 weeks to publish your work. At this time, bound copies will be delivered to all who have ordered them. If you have filed for an embargo, this will be honored after delivery to ProQuest.

KU Libraries recommends you choose the Traditional publishing option in ProQuest. Open access publishing provides public access to the dissertation or thesis; however, an open version is also available to the public through KU ScholarWorks for free. Open Access publishing in ProQuest has an additional fee of $95.

Degrees post to transcripts after it has been conferred. Please reference the KU Academic Calendar for specific dates. 

Diplomas will not be available until the middle of the following semester.  If you chose for it to be mailed, it will be mailed to the address you provided on the Application for Graduation. If you selected in-person pick up you will be notified when your diploma is ready to be picked up.  The Registrar's Diplomas page has detailed information and timelines for getting your diploma.

A Statement of Forthcoming Degree (SOFD) is an official document from the University of Kansas verifying that all degree requirements have been met, though the degree has not yet been conferred. COGA must confirm that you have met all graduation requirements before authorizing the Registrar to issue a SOFD. For more information, check the Statement of Forthcoming Degree module in "My Graduation Checklist" or contact your Graduate Coordinator or program staff.

Graduation Regalia is available through the KU Bookstore. 

Yes. In addition to Commencement, all doctoral degree candidates are invited to participate in the Doctoral Hooding Ceremony each May. The Office of Graduate Studies coordinates the event.

Yes. In addition to Commencement, all candidates for master's degrees in the College are invited to participate in the College’s Master’s Hooding ceremony. More information about the ceremony can be found on the Master's Hooding Ceremony page.