Document Type
Article
Abstract
Policy for Graduate Thesis-Adjacent Series in Digital Commons
Graduate programs at Wayne State are increasingly requiring terminal projects that are not traditional theses or dissertations. These outputs require series in Digital Commons @ Wayne State that operate outside the established thesis/dissertation protocol in the repository. For the purpose of this policy, these will be referred to as Capstone series.
Content Guidelines for Digital Commons @ Wayne State require that student work is accepted on a case-by-case basis, determined by repository administrators. Because Capstone series are negotiated between the program and the repository administrator, they meet this requirement. and deposits to these series are otherwise covered under the basic Policy for DC@WSU, along with the following additional requirements:
- Because these are graduate-level projects required for matriculation, it is assumed that the work will have been supervised and accepted by faculty in the program, and submission to these series will indicate that faculty has vetted the appropriateness of sharing this scholarly material openly on the web.
- Capstone series will identify an individual in the department who will administrate the program in Digital Commons. The repository administrator will train and support this individual, but the individual will handle mediating, accepting and posting deposits to the series.
- Students will have signed an agreement (or in some cases signaled agreement online using a form, a clickthrough license, or other digital means) granting permission to Wayne State to archive and distribute the work in the repository. Where this agreement is handled in print outside Digital Commons, department administrators will arrange to store these agreements as unpublished supplementary materials in Digital Commons; where it is handled through a digital form, department administrators will share access to that form and the resulting records with the repository administrator.
- If the department requires an embargo option for the Capstone series, students will first complete the preference form at https://wayne.libwizard.com/f/etd_permissions.
- Projects accepted to the series will meet accessibility standards based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA, in accordance with the final rule issued under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Wayne State offers guidance and resources to assist in meeting these standards at https://accessibility.wayne.edu. The Libraries encourage programs to communicate and consider these requirements early in the development of Capstone projects.
Adopted 2026.07.08; Last updated 2026.06.24, JNF
Disciplines
Library and Information Science