Electronic Deposit Gateway

Please be sure to review all the information on this page carefully before clicking any links.

Now that you have successfully defended your dissertation, your last remaining academic requirement is to complete the dissertation deposit.

Teachers College PhD students only:

  • If the deposit takes place more than one month into the semester following the defense, you are responsible for an additional Dissertation Advisement Fee. Please contact the TC Office of Doctoral Studies for more information.
  • When uploading your dissertation to the Electronic Deposit Gateway, you must select “Columbia University” as the institution. (“Teachers College, Columbia University” is for EdD students only.)

The following information applies to all PhD students seeking to complete the deposit:

There are four steps to completing the deposit, which may be completed in any order. Detailed instructions for each step can be found below (under the subheadings in red).

Please ensure that all of these steps are fulfilled by the deposit deadline. The doctoral degree cannot be conferred until all deposit requirements are completed. For detailed information on deadlines to complete revisions to the dissertation, please see the Defense and Evaluation webpage.

To ensure that your dissertation is properly formatted, review the Formatting Guidelines and avail yourself of the Word or LaTex templates, if you wish, before uploading to the Electronic Deposit Gateway.

Should you wish to receive your degree at a particular degree conferral (October, February, or May), please refer to the Dates and Deadlines page. 

Do not leave this process for the last day of a deposit deadline. It is your responsibility to ensure that all parts of the deposit are completed by the deadline, including a correctly formatted dissertation. We review every dissertation submitted, and provide feedback when necessary. We recommend   uploading your file at least a few days before the deposit deadline.

It will take three business days for GSAS to produce a certification letter for deposits made the week before a deadline. Take this extra time into account if you need a certification letter by a particular date.

1. Complete the GSAS deposit application and pay the $85 processing fee.

Log in to the GSAS deposit application using your UNI and password. This application collects critical information for your diploma and your certification letters. The application fee is non-refundable, with the exception of errors that may arise during payment processing.

While completing the GSAS deposit application, please note the following:

  • Application fields are case-sensitive.
  • The first and last name fields should reflect the student’s legal first and last name.
  • The UNI field should reflect the student’s Columbia University UNI only and not the entire Columbia University email address.

We strongly recommend that credit card payment is submitted on a personal computer, as transactions submitted via smartphone and tablet devices have been prone to technical errors.

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

Click here to access the deposit application.

2. Submit the required Survey of Earned Doctorates online.

The Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) is an ongoing survey sponsored by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, US Department of Education, National Endowment for the Humanities, 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 processing of your deposit. To view a copy of the Survey of Earned Doctorates questions online, click here. For questions about how to answer A7 and/or A17, please contact the GSAS Financial Aid Office at gsas-finaid [at] columbia.edu.

When registering for the SED site:

  • For institution, choose: Columbia University
  • Students from TC should choose: Teachers College-Columbia Univ.
  • Students from TC 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 understood the information above, click here to access the Survey of Earned Doctorates.

3. Upload and submit a PDF copy of your dissertation.

With this step, the digital copy of your dissertation is uploaded to both ProQuest/UMI and Academic Commons (Columbia's online research repository). Dissertations from Teachers College are also uploaded to Pocket Knowledge (TC's online research repository), and JSD dissertations are also added to the Law Library's catalog.  

Do not upload your dissertation directly to Academic Commons using their website. Following the procedures outlined below will result in your dissertation being uploaded to both ProQuest/UMI and Academic Commons.

Your dissertation must be uploaded in PDF format. If you have not already created a PDF, or if you are unable to do so, there is a PDF Conversion Tool available as part of the upload process. You will also need a copy of your abstract that you can copy and paste into a text box.

Carefully review your dissertation thoroughly and check your document before uploading to the Electronic Deposit Gateway. Should any formatting revisions need to be made to the dissertation, the Dissertation Office will be in contact to address changes.

If you have included images, tables, and/or figures in the dissertation, please ensure that you have obtained copyright permissions for those materials. If you have been denied permissions or have not received approval for fair use, you are not authorized to include previously published materials in the dissertation. For more information, please refer to the Copyright Law and Dissertation Preparation Guide and commercial work guidelines.

Public Accessibility and Dissertation Embargoes

By default, your dissertation will be made publicly available online in an open-access repository. If you have questions or concerns about the digital availability of your dissertation, please click here for frequently asked questions on this topic.

Dissertation Embargo

If you choose, you may place a one-, two-, or five-year embargo on your dissertation. The option to request an embargo of one or two years will be offered to you in the upload process under the section "Delaying release in ProQuest"; please see here for instructions on requesting a five-year embargo.

If you indicate your request for an embargo in this section, your dissertation will also be embargoed in Academic Commons. The title and abstract of embargoed dissertations will still be available to the public through ProQuest. Until the end of the embargo period, the full text of any embargoed dissertation will not be released to the public under any circumstances by GSAS, Academic Commons, or ProQuest.

Extending an Embargo

Under compelling circumstances, GSAS may authorize an embargo to be extended beyond the period originally requested. Alumni who wish to extend their embargo should complete both of the following steps:

  1. Send an email to gsas-dissertations [at] columbia.edu one month before the scheduled end of the embargo, briefly outlining the circumstances and explaining the reasons for the extension. The request will be reviewed in the Office of the Dean, and if approved, the embargo will be extended for either one or two more years within Academic Commons.
  2. Write to disspub [at] proquest.com before the scheduled end of the embargo, so that the extension may be processed by ProQuest.

Search Engine Access

During the upload process, you will be asked whether to allow major search engines to discover your work. This option only applies to the copy of your dissertation in ProQuest. All unembargoed dissertations in Academic Commons are catalogued by major search engines.

Copyright Registration

Please note that under copyright law, you automatically hold a copyright on your work. This is why we have you include a copyright page in your dissertation. Copyright registration provides important practical and legal benefits beyond those you already enjoy as the creator of an original work. Columbia’s Copyright Advisory Office provides extensive information about copyright issues; of particular interest is this page, which explains your rights as the author of a dissertation or of any other original work.

If you are the sole author of your dissertation, you may proceed with single-author copyright registration through ProQuest/UMI. This service costs $75, and can be paid via credit card directly to ProQuest through the upload system. Dissertations that include coauthored text or materials must be registered directly with the US Copyright Office via a Standard Application.

Uploading Your Dissertation

Before beginning the upload process, please note the following; failure to do so may delay processing of your deposit.

    On the page marked "Dissertation/Thesis Details":

  • Under "Advisor/Committee Chair," provide your advisor/sponsor's name, not the chair of your dissertation defense committee. If you have two co-sponsors, list your primary academic sponsor as "Advisor # 1." You have two co-sponsors if at the time of your prospectus defense or MPhil application your department indicated two co-sponsors.
  • Under "Committee Members," do not include any names. Dissertations from Columbia are only catalogued with the author's name and the sponsor's name.

If you have read and understand the information above, click here to access the upload system.

4. Obtain and submit a signed Approval Card to the Dissertation Office (gsas-dissertations@columbia.edu) that certifies you have made all required revisions, and that the dissertation has been approved for deposit by your sponsor and by your program.

All students who pass the dissertation defense should receive a blue-colored Approval Card. This card tells GSAS that any revisions given during the defense have been completed, and that the dissertation is ready to be deposited. The card must be signed by your sponsor, as well as your department chair, director of graduate studies, or program director. If you have left New York and are unable to obtain the necessary signatures, then contact the administrators for your doctoral program, who can get the signatures on your behalf. Extra Approval Cards are available at 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: Submit your Approval Card to the Teachers College Office of Doctoral Studies.

Questions?

For questions about the deposit process, please contact the Dissertation Office at gsas-dissertations [at] columbia.edu.

The Dissertation Office is open Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

107 Low Memorial Library
(212) 854-6723
gsas-dissertations [at] columbia.edu