Submitting your Thesis or Project to the Library

The Joint Ed.D. in Educational Leadership is offered through a partnership of California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) and University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Dissertations from this program are accepted on a rolling basis, but should only be sent in after Sara Miceli (UCSD) has cleared you to do so. 

The version you deposit with CSUSM must be made accessible, but we will help you with this process. What does "accessible" mean? It means tagging the document so that the content can be accessed by people using assistive technology. This short  video on ADA issues may be helpful in explaining why accessibility is important.

Please email your dissertation to the ADA Formatting team for help. Dissertations are processed on a "first come, first serve" basis. Dissertations will not be processed from July 22nd to August 16th to accommodate the CSUSM Master's Degree deadline.

Step 1:  Your dissertation must be ADA-compliant, but don't worry! We will make it accessible for you. Email the Word version of your dissertation to thesisada@csusm.edu and Amy will format it for you. When you save the file, the name of the saved document name must use the following format:    

Last nameFirst name_TermYear  For example: DoeJohn_Spring2022.doc.
 

Step 2: Pay the $25 fee.

Paying online:  Every student must pay the $25 fee. To pay online, you may use an electronic check. This method is free. Or you may pay using a credit card. If you use a credit card, a convenience charge of 2.675 % will be added to the fee. MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and Visa are all accepted. When you pay online, a receipt will be emailed to you and to Carmen Mitchell.

Paying on Campus: Go to the Cashier's Office and pay the $25 thesis/project fee.  The CSUSM Cashier's Office is located in Craven Hall, 3800. The office hours are Monday - Friday from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM, but can change so please call them before coming to campus. If you pay at the cashier's office, you will need to email a copy of your receipt to Carmen Mitchell.

Step 3: Once the ADA formatting team has made your dissertation ADA-compliant, they will email it back to you and copy Carmen Mitchell. Carmen will upload your dissertation files to ScholarWorks, and will sign your "Report of the Completion of the Doctoral Project and Recommendation for the Degree of Doctor of Education" form. UCSD will route the form to Carmen for electronic signature. 

Additional considerations: If you are restricting the access of your dissertation with an embargo, please email Carmen Mitchell your "Dissertation Release Form" from UCSD showing the embargo term that you would like.

If you have supplementary files that you would like to submit along with your dissertation, you may do so. For text files, they must be submitted as accessible PDFs. For other types of files, please contact the Scholarly Communication Librarian. 

If you have further questions, please contact Carmen Mitchell.
Email:cmitchell@csusm.edu

After your uploaded document is verified, it is made public through CSUSM ScholarWorks. A link to the document will be available through the library’s online card catalog.  The CSUSM Library does not accept paper copies of dissertations.

Students retain all rights to their work.  However, students must also grant a non-exclusive license to the university at the time of submission. The license confirms that the student is the creator and contributor of the work and grants the university permission to share the work in an open-access digital environment for educational purposes.

Students and any co-authors retain all intellectual property rights for the dissertation. Students submitting materials for which they do not own copyrights, must certify that they have obtained permission from the copyright owner before making materials available online.

Students also give the university permission to make their work available to all users and to adapt it to accessible formats per American Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance requirements. Requests for use of the work for purposes other than education will be referred back to the copyright holder.