Approvals and Required Forms

Written Thesis / Dissertation Approval

After the student has passed the final defense and the committee has approved the written thesis or dissertation, the committee and department head (or chair of intercollegiate faculty) signs the Written Thesis/Dissertation Approval Form. This form is available online from the Forms and Information section of the Graduate and Professional Studies website.

All committee members must sign the Written Thesis/Dissertation Approval Form before the thesis, dissertation, or record of study can be submitted electronically. All signatures are needed before Thesis and Dissertation Services can accept a manuscript for review. Any student who is having trouble obtaining signatures should contact the Graduate Staff Advisor in their department or Thesis and Dissertation Services for guidance.

In certain cases, if a committee member is willing but unavailable to sign at the time of submittal, the student may obtain the chair’s or authorized signer’s (must be of the same department as the committee member) signature in place of the committee member who is unavailable as a temporary measure. This process cannot be used for the committee chair.
 

TAMU Copyright and Availability Form

All theses and dissertations will eventually be available to the public. At the time of submittal, the student has the option to release the document immediately, have the document held for a limited period of time for publishing purposes (as specified in the TAMU Copyright and Availability Form), or have the full record held for a limited period of time for patent/proprietary issues. Except in cases of full record holds, information about the work (title, author, abstract, etc.) will be made available to the public during the embargo period.

After the student has graduated, the final approved manuscript will be available via the Internet from the Texas A&M University Libraries and the Texas Digital Library. Additionally, dissertations will be available from ProQuest/ UMI.
 

Survey of Earned Doctorates and AAUDE Survey (for Doctoral Students)

Doctoral students must complete both surveys and provide a printout of the completion certificates. The Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) is the definitive source of information on the nation’s new research doctorates. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation and five other Federal agencies and conducted by NORC, the SED is critical to understanding in what specialty areas doctorates are produced and their post-graduation employment plans. Results are used by government as well as academic institutions to make decisions about graduate education funding, developing new programs and supporting existing ones. Texas A&M University has developed the AAUDE Core Graduate Education Exit Survey from a set of core questions in use at a number of member institutions of the Association of American Universities (AAU). Information gained from this survey will be distributed through the Texas A&M University Data and Research Services to AAU and be combined with data from other contributing AAU institutions to help us improve our graduate programs.

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