When the University announced last November that doctoral dissertations and masters dissertations from some engineering disciplines would be made available in a digital format, it was unclear how many graduate students would take advantage of this option over the traditional “hard-copy” submission. Now, nearly an entire academic year later, it is clear that some graduate students have made the transition smoothly from paper to electronic submission.

The change came from the registrar and libraries, with Google helping to implement the new submission process and make the results of students’ research available to the public more efficiently.

There are several advantages to both graduate students and the University for making the transition from paper to digital, say those involved: it is less expensive for students by several hundred dollars and it solves the inefficient process of making the original paper submissions electronic after they are submitted.

“It’s an inefficient process,” said Michael Keller, the University librarian. “Things like illustrations degrade instead of improve. And things like supplemental data files—if you wanted to provide anything from a data set to a spreadsheet, from an animation to a model, you can’t render that in paper so it can’t be part of the thesis…if you could submit your thesis electronically, these things can become incorporated in the actual document.”

“I can’t speak for the whole academy but I can say that it’s not mandatory, but students seem to have overwhelmingly gone for it,” he added.

In fall of 2009, when this option was first made available, 61 out of 85 dissertations were submitted electronically. In winter quarter, 83 out of 96 submissions were digital. The number of electronic submissions is expected to increase in spring quarter and to eventually approach 100 percent, Keller said

One student, Claire Adida, described her decision to go digital.

“I decided to submit it electronically because I found it to be a much more convenient, cheaper and better method,” said Adida, a doctoral student in the political science department who recently submitted a dissertation titled “Immigration Exclusion and Insecurity in Africa.”

“What it does is make your dissertation available pretty immediately online, at least to the Stanford community,” she added. “I think the easier it is to put your work out there and to make it accessible, the better, the more legitimate and more recognized it will be.

Other students have expressed some concern that the electronic submission option gives the authors less control over who has access to their research, according to Adida.

“Some people don’t really feel comfortable with their dissertation being widely available and widely read before it’s significantly improved and published with a respectable university press,” she said.

“There are still options for you to limit the distribution of the dissertation even when you file electronically,” she added. “In the social sciences I don’t see any advantages in limiting the distribution of the dissertation.”

Despite the availability of the electronic option, some students still find themselves making a print copy for themselves and those close to them.

“While I have an emotional attachment to what happens to my dissertation,” said Sarah Rubinfeld, a graduate student in civil and environmental engineering, “in terms of my career, what’s important is what happens to the information and it’s going to be out there in [electronic form]…because in the long run that’s the way people are going to read it.”

“As far as I know, it’s a win-win all around,” Keller added. “It’s better for the student, it’s better for the scholarly world and the University is in a position to benefit from that.”