Depositing the Dissertation as a Commercial Work

Work submitted under the commercial publication option must be conventionally published, commercially available, and identical with the defended dissertation. The commercially published work may be a book, a set of professionally bound reprints that are numbered throughout, a government report, a lab report, or some other publication. It must also be available from a distributor such as a bookstore, government printing office, or journal publisher, and contain the Library of Congress number. GSAS does not accept the so-called "author's publication" for work not previously commercially published, nor does GSAS consider photocopied material to be published material. GSAS also does not accept commercially published work that was not included in the dissertation at the time of the defense. The Office of the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences reserves the right to deny submission of any dissertation under this option that is not in accordance with these regulations.

Copyright Permissions

Please refer to the Copyright Law and Dissertation Preparation Guide before beginning the deposit process. All students who would like to be considered for the commercial publication option must submit their copyright permissions to gsas-dissertations [at] columbia.edu. Depending on the copyright permissions granted by the publisher, students can deposit their work in one of two ways:

1. Modified Deposit

If authors have received copyright permission to republish and/or display the content of their commercialized work in the dissertation, they are required to follow the specific formatting guidelines below and email their final version to gsas-dissertations [at] columbia.edu for review. These submissions are not deposited to ProQuest; they are submitted to the Academic Commons repository.

2. Special Formatting

If the dissertation is wholly composed of separately published articles, GSAS will accept a PDF of reprints of the articles, including the title page (front cover) of the volume of the journals in which the articles were published. In addition, this PDF copy must include a title page and abstract as described in the formatting guidelines. If the titles of the articles differ from the overall title of the dissertation as defended, all must be included on the title page. This page must include the full legal name of the author (as it is recorded on the Registrar's official records) and the year of conferral.

Depositing

The requirement that the dissertation be available to scholars may also be satisfied by depositing a commercially published work that is identical to the dissertation as defended. This type of dissertation must be submitted as a PDF to gsas-dissertations [at] columbia.edu for formatting review two weeks prior to your desired deposit completion date. If the entire dissertation as defended has not been commercially published by the time of final deposit, the author may not deposit under the commercial publication option.

Payment

With this option, the dissertation is digitized and cataloged, and the fee payable at deposit is $85 USD. You must use a credit card to pay the $85 processing fee through this this form. All credit card transactions must be completed via this webpage. Do not send any credit card information directly to any Columbia University staff member.

Due to our current remote work situation, the Dissertation Office cannot accept US Postal Money Orders, bank money orders, or certified checks until further notice.

Other Requirements

Approval Card

All students who pass the dissertation defense should receive a blue-colored Approval Card. This card tells GSAS that any revisions required during the defense have been completed and that the dissertation is ready to be deposited. The card must be signed by the sponsor, as well as by the department chair, director of graduate studies, or program director. If the student has left New York and is unable to obtain the necessary signatures, please contact the departmental administrators for the doctoral program, who may retrieve the signatures on the student’s behalf. Blank Approval Cards are available in the reception area of 107 Low Library. The Approval Card is required for completion of the deposit, and should be submitted to the Dissertation Office in 107 Low Library.

Teachers College PhD Students: Please submit the Approval Card to the Teachers College Office of Doctoral Studies.

Submit the Required Survey of Earned Doctorates Online

The Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) is an ongoing survey sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the US Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the US Department of Agriculture, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. GSAS requires completion of this survey as part of the dissertation deposit.

Please note the following points before accessing the SED website. Failure to follow these steps may delay the processing of your deposit.

When registering for the SED site:

  • For institution, GSAS students should choose Columbia University; Teachers College students should choose Teachers College-Columbia Univ.
  • Students from Teachers College must include gsas-dissertations-internal [at] columbia.edu as one of the secondary notification email addresses at the end of the survey. If you omit this, we will not receive a confirmation, and your deposit will be delayed.

If you have read and understand the information above, click here to access the Survey of Earned Doctorates.