• As of March 30, 2012, the word is that all backdated theses in the Thesis Registration System (Spring 2010 to Spring 2012) will be fully audited  and included in both the Institutional Respository and Library catalogue sometime in the Fall 2012 semester. 

• Our goal is to have theses in the Catalogue by the end of the semester that follows the term in which you submitted your thesis. 
  

Once you have submitted your Thesis Package to the library, as long as all the requirement documentation has been included this requirement for graduation has been completed.

Approval of Theses: 2 Stages (Intake and Audit)

After a thesis has been submitted to the library, it goes through a 2-stage process of approval: intake (up to 1 month) and audit (4-6 months). 

Upon completion of each stage, the author is sent a system-generated email and, if there are 'issues' with your documentation or thesis that we cannot fix, these will be stated in one or both of those emails, requesting that you make the necessary changes and upload a new PDF (and perhaps to send the PDF to theses@sfu.ca as well).

Intake

• When you submit your thesis in person to the Assistant for Theses and she goes through it with you, the intake is processed immediately.
• If you drop-off your thesis, the intake is processed within 1 month.
• If you are out of the lower mainly and you send your thesis in via Fed Ex ( for more info click here ) the intake is processed within 1 month.

When the intake is completed, you will receive an auto-generated email from the Thesis Registration System. 

If you haven't already done so, apply for graduation (see DGS' page, How to Apply for Graduation) and attend convocation if you wish (see footnotes in Deadline Dates).

Audit

When a thesis has been fully audited, it is then approved, sent to the bindery, and marked as ready for transfer to the Institutional Repository (IR). At this point in time (Summer 2011), this process takes 3 to 5 months.

Any thesis with problems that can't be fixed at the audit stage are put on a problem pile for the Assistant for Theses to address at a later date.  The 2009 and 2010 theses have been audited, and there are a few theses with problems waiting to be addressed, some dating as far back as 2008. The final online approvals for many 2010 theses, however, are back-logged to when the online thesis registration/submission system was first instituted (Spring 2010). The Thesis Office has remedied this situation for theses submitted March 2011 and later however, at this point in time, we do not know when this online approval backlog will be completed.  Your patience is appreciated.

See also:

• Errors in Theses
• Personal / Department bound copies of theses
• Fees/Tuition Refunds
   

Online Access to Theses

Students who have submitted their theses to the Thesis Office from Spring 2010 onward have immediate online access to their theses. 

Your thesis can be searched for via the current thesis submission system. Though the address to your thesis will always have your ETD number in it, once your thesis has been approved and moved to the Institutional Repository, the link will change. 

If you can't find your thesis in the submission system, try the Library's catalogue—especially those completed Spring 2010 and before. 

See also Finding Research Projects and Theses from SFU.
How can I direct others to find my thesis in the library?