The Electronic Thesis Submission (ETS) Policy governs the deposit of student theses into the College of Education Digital Archive and Repository (CEDAR). These policies apply to all undergraduate and graduate students of the UST College of Education whose theses have received final departmental or graduate school approval.

Submission of an approved thesis to CEDAR is part of the institutional completion requirements of the College of Education. These policies ensure that submitted works meet quality, metadata, and rights standards required for long-term archiving and public discovery.

Electronic theses submitted to CEDAR must be the final approved version — bearing the signatures or approvals of the student's thesis adviser, panel members, and the relevant department or graduate school office. Draft or pre-defense versions are not accepted.

Required metadata for each submission includes:

• Approved thesis title (as it appears on the final manuscript)
• Full legal name(s) of the author(s) and institutional affiliation
• Department, degree program (e.g., Bachelor of Secondary Education, Master of Arts in Education), and academic year
• Thesis adviser name and institutional affiliation
• Names of panel members
• Abstract (minimum 150 words) and subject keywords
• Applicable rights statement, selected license, and access level

Files must be submitted in PDF/A or PDF format. File names must follow the naming convention specified in the ETS Submission Guidelines. Supplemental files (e.g., research instruments, data files) may be accepted subject to administrator approval.

Authors are encouraged to register for and provide an ORCID iD at the time of submission to improve attribution, research discoverability, and long-term interoperability. ORCID identifiers are stored as part of the author metadata record.

Rights and license selections must reflect the authorization actually granted by the depositor and the institution. Authors who select an open license (e.g., Creative Commons) confirm that they have the right to grant such a license over the entire work, including any third-party content used with permission.

Copyright in student theses remains with the student author(s) unless separately assigned to the University. By submitting to CEDAR, authors grant the College of Education Library a non-exclusive right to preserve, describe, and disseminate the thesis under the approved access terms.

Theses approved for embargo may have full-text access withheld for a defined period while bibliographic metadata remains publicly visible. Embargo periods are set at the time of deposit based on institutional approval and must be justified by a documented academic, legal, or ethical reason.

Available access options at deposit include:

• Open Access — full text publicly available immediately upon publication
• Embargoed — full text withheld for a defined period (e.g., 1 or 2 years); metadata visible
• Restricted — full text accessible only to authorized users by formal request

Embargo extension requests must be submitted to the College of Education Library before the embargo expiry date, with written justification. Unauthorized copying or distribution of embargoed content is a violation of this policy and the Acceptable Use Policy.

CEDAR retains the deposited thesis and associated metadata as part of the institutional scholarly record and the College of Education's preservation workflow. The preserved copy is the authoritative archival version for citation and institutional purposes.

Authors who wish to deposit revised or corrected versions after initial publication must submit a written request to the College of Education Library. Version history is maintained in the administrative record for audit and records management purposes.

Metadata corrections (e.g., title spelling, author name, keywords) and access condition changes may be requested in writing to the College of Education Library. Requests must identify the specific record and the nature of the correction with supporting documentation.

Takedown or withdrawal requests are assessed through the repository review process and must be supported by institutional authorization, legal justification, or documented evidence of rights violation, plagiarism, or error. Withdrawn records are replaced by a tombstone notice preserving the bibliographic metadata for citation purposes.

CEDAR reserves the right to remove or restrict access to thesis records that are found to contain plagiarized content, unauthorized third-party material, or falsified information, consistent with the UST Academic Integrity Policy.