The Graduate School requires signatures from students, committee members, department heads and/or graduate program faculty, and graduate program coordinators on forms submitted to us.
Our preference is to have an original signature. However, we understand that there may be times when faculty are not available (out of town, without technological access, sick, etc.) to provide an original signature. In those cases, we can always accept a fax (540/231-2039) or scanned version of the form with the corresponding signature. Signatures can come in on individual form pages, multiple form pages (which we will combine to make one packet of forms) or all on one form. Please follow-up these submissions with the original signature version, if possible.
When a person is completely out of reach or unable to provide a signature through these alternate means, then the faculty member can give permission for another person (the committee chair, the graduate program faculty, the department head, or the graduate program coordinator) to sign on their behalf via email. Please provide a copy of the email with the signed documents submitted to the Graduate School.
The ONLY case where we can NOT accept a substitute signature with permission is on the ETD Approval Form. This form must have the signature(s) from the corresponding committee members to be valid. Again, these signatures can be sent to us on an individual basis, on multiple form pages, or all on one form with a follow-up submission of the original at a later time.
Knowing and understanding the processes and expectations we have for signatures should enable your students and faculty to obtain the necessary signatures quicker and with less stress.
Please share this information with those in your department who serve on committees or who may be asked to sign a form.
Graduate Student Award Nominations Deadline Feb 5
The Graduate School would like to encourage nominations for the following student awards:
- Outstanding Dissertation– two awards, one in math/science/engineering and one in social sciences/business/humanities, $1000
- Graduate Student Teaching Excellence– $1000
- Graduate Student Service Excellence– $1000
- Graduate Man and Woman of the Year- $500
- Outstanding Graduate Student– one master’s and one doctoral student per college, $500
- Outstanding Interdisciplinary Program Student– $500
The deadline for the first four awards listed above is February 5 while the last two are due by February 19, 2009.
Upcoming ETD Speaker Series-Copyright
Please join us at 7pm on February 18th, 2010, to hear Gail McMillan discuss copyright, permissions and representing other author’s works in your ETD. As always, you will have the opportunity to ask questions.
GLC Room F; 7-8:30pm; February 18, 2010
Upcoming ETD Speaker Series-The Review Process
Please join us at 7pm on March 24th, 2010, to hear Graduate School staff discuss items that are checked when reviewing your submitted ETD as well as the timeline of the submission process. As always, you will have the opportunity to ask questions.
GLC Room F; 7-8:30pm; March 24, 2010
Call for Nominations – NDLTD ETD Awards – 2010
NDLTD Innovation & Leadership Awards
The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) consortium is pleased to announce the 2010 ETD Awards program. We invite all NDLTD members to nominate individuals they feel deserve the recognition!
The awards include several categories of appreciation.
- The Innovative ETD Award recognizes student efforts to transform the genre of the print dissertation through the use of innovative software to create multimedia ETDs.
- The Innovative Learning through ETDs Award a student whose professional life has been enhanced by the ETD process.
- The ETD Leadership Award recognizes members of the university community whose leadership and vision has helped raise awareness of the benefits of ETDs and whose efforts have improved graduate education and research through the use of ETDs.
The awards will be presented at the ETD 2010 Symposium, to be held June 16 – 19, 2010 at the University of Texas, in Austin, Texas, USA.
Eligibility, Nomination Procedures and Evaluation Criteria
- Nominations will be reviewed by a panel of ETD experts, including members of the NDLTD Board of Directors Awards Committee. Active members of the NDLTD Awards Committee are not eligible for nomination.
- Winners are encouraged but not required to attend the ETD Symposium. We request that winners who cannot attend the Symposium record a video acceptance message (approximately 2 – 3 minutes) that can be presented at the Symposium Awards ceremony and distributed online, or provide an acceptance message in writing (500 words or less).
- Nomination letters should include:
- A brief description (1,000 words or less) of background information, detail of the merits of the work and justification for nomination.
- Additional letters of support (i.e. from faculty, administration, students, Library or Graduate School Dean, Provost, etc.).
- Complete contact information for both the nominator and nominee, including home and/or University postal and email addresses.
- Examples of previous award winners, links to multimedia ETDs and acceptance speech videos are available at
- Nominations must be sent by email to ETD Awards Committee Co-chair John Hagen (West Virginia University) at John.Hagen@mail.wvu.edu.
- Deadline for Nominations: February 15, 2010
Specific Awards Category Information and Requirements
Innovative ETD Award
ETDs submitted for this award must represent student efforts to transform the genre of the print dissertation through the use of ETDs. This award recognizes innovative use of software to create "cutting edge" ETDs. The application and integration of renderings, photos, data sets, software code and other multimedia objects that are included in the document will be considered as part of the innovation of the work.
- An ETD can be nominated by an administrator, faculty member, librarian or student (self-nomination). The nominator and the nominee’s University should be affiliated with the NDLTD.
- Each NDLTD member may submit up to 2 nominees; self-nominations are not included in the institutional count.
- The nomination for these awards should include links to the archived work, along with a brief statement about how the work uses technology to enhance the presentation of research.
- ETD nominations may be in PDF and/or open (non-PDF) formats. Submissions of PDF formats should include hyper-linking and/or the source URL to any included supplementary multimedia material.
- The ETD must be distributed online as open access.
- The ETD should have been approved for graduation during the 2009 calendar year (January through December 2009), although we will consider nominations from previous years as well.
- There may be up to two winners.
- Each winner will receive $1,000.*
Innovative Learning through ETDs Award
A student whose professional life has been enhanced by the ETD process (not to include the value of the degree earned) will be recognized.
- Self-nomination is appropriate for this award.
- The nomination for this award should include a short essay (1,000 words or less) describing the student’s ETD experience and how it improved/changed their graduate experience and their professional life.
- The ETD may still be in-process or already completed at the time of nomination.
- There is no time limit on when the ETD may have been completed.
- There may be up to two winners.
- Each winner will receive $1,000.*
ETD Leadership Award
This is open to individuals whose leadership and vision has helped raise awareness of the benefits of ETDs and whose efforts have improved graduate education through the use of ETDs. Letters of nomination should include details about the individual’s ETD related activities and how the nominee’s leadership has made significant advances in the area of ETDs at the local, regional, national or international levels.
- Nominations should be submitted by the nominee’s supervisor or related University administrator.
- The nominee’s institution must be affiliated as an NDLTD member university.
- There may be up to two winners.
- Each winner will receive international honorary recognition.
*I.R.S regulations require the NDLTD to report all award amounts distributed; citizens of the United States must provide a valid Social Security number to receive award distributions. Winners must agree to the conditions set forth in the eligibility requirements listed here and NDLTD policy. Winners must also agree to make acceptance / acknowledgments materials available to the NDLTD for the purpose of international promotions.
For more information visit: http://www.ndltd.org/community/awards/call-for-nominations-ndltd-etd-awards-2010