Doctoral Research & Writing Guide

Here are some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Learning Commons services available for doctoral students:

1. What services does the Learning Commons offer to Doctoral Students?
2. How can I use the library to find research methods or research instruments?
3. Can I get access to articles not available through the Franklin University Library?
4. Can I access articles directly from a publisher/journal website through the Franklin University Library? 
5. How do I measure journal impact or find citation metrics? Does the library provide access to SCOPUS or Web of Science?

Here are some FAQs doctoral students have about dissertations and the dissertation process:

1. Where do I find a list of faculty members eligible for my Committee?
2. Does Franklin University provide a dissertation template?
3. Where can I find previous students' completed dissertations or examples of excellent dissertations?
4. How do I defend my dissertation, and can I view recordings of previous students' doctoral defenses?
5. How do I submit my dissertation for publication in the OhioLINK Electronic Thesis & Dissertation Center?
6. What should I choose for the copyright portion of the submission process?
7. Do I need to submit to ProQuest Dissertations?
8. Where will my dissertation be available after publication?
9. What about binding services for my dissertation?
10. How do I turn my dissertation into a journal article or book?

Library Services:

• Research Help: 
  • Research assistance: Ask a librarian questions about research, using the library, or APA through Chat, Email, or Phone.
  • Research Coaching: schedule an appointment with a librarian to help you learn to use the library, make resource recommendations, and develop research skills. 
  • Please review our Research Services Policies for additional information about what librarians do and do not help with.

Tutoring Services:

• Writing Tutoring and Online Writing Review: schedule an appointment with a writing tutor or submit your paper to the online writing review to have it reviewed by a writing tutor.
  • Students taking comprehensive exams: cannot schedule writing tutoring or submit to the online writing review. 
  • Students in the dissertation phase: cannot submit to the online writing review but can continue to schedule writing tutoring appointments. 
  • Please review our Tutoring Polices and Guidelines for more information.
• Once you are in your statistics courses, you will also have access statistics tutoring. 

On-site Learning Commons Services:

• Meeting Rooms: book one of our meeting rooms for quiet study or to meet with a group;
• Copying/Printing;
• Book pick-up and return.

You can search for a research method or research instrument in the library's Proquest Dissertation and Theses database as follows:

1. Select the "advanced search" option;
2. type: "research methodology" OR "research instrument" in the first search box;
3. type your subject in the second search box;
4. click on the search button;
5. on the results page, you can further limit your search by year, subject and/or index term using the filters on the left side of the page.

Here's an example:

Yes, there may still be a way to freely access articles that are not available in the Library databases. The Library can request articles from other institutions through a service called InterLibrary Loan. To request an article through InterLibrary Loan use the link below to fill out our request form. 

Please note that access is not instantaneous through this service. Requests can take up to two weeks but are often fulfilled much sooner than that. There are limitations to the amount of requests that you can make in a given term (10 book requests and 10 article requests per month). See the InterLibrary Loan Guidelines for additional information.

You can use the LibKey Nomad browser plugin to access scholarly articles you find on a publisher/journal website for free using your Franklin University Library account. LibKey does not work on all publisher sites. You can find a list of publishers Libkey supports on their website.

Visit our LibKey Nomad research guide for more information about LibKey Nomad, including how to download/install the required browser plugin.

The library does not provide access to SCOPUS or Web of Science. Google Scholar does provide metrics about publications. The top publications link below shows the top 100 indexed publications. You can put a topic in the "search publications" searchbox on that page (not on the main Google Scholar page) to see top publications on a topic. For further information, see the "Google Scholar Metrics" help page and "Google Scholar Blog" page linked below:

You can find information about establishing your Committee, including a list of eligible faculty on this page of Franklin University's website:

Yes, there are dissertation templates available. Please see the link below. Please contact your dissertation committee for additional information or if you have questions about dissertation formatting and review, .

All completed dissertations by Franklin students are available in the OhioLINK ETD Center database. Use the link below to go straight to Franklin University's student dissertations.

You can also find exemplars of outstanding dissertations by looking at the dissertations which have been nominated for, given honorable mention, or been awarded the Franklin University Dissertation Excellence Award:

Franklin University Doctoral students must present and orally defend their dissertation to demonstrate their competency and defend the method and implementation of the dissertation project. Some of Franklin University's doctoral candidates have agreed to make their defense recording videos available in the University's Institutional Repository, FUSE. You can see the videos from the links below:

DBA

DHA

Ed.D

Before you can upload your dissertation to the OhioLINK ETD Center, you'll need to ensure that your document satisfies the University's Digital Accessibility Requirements and add your defense signature page to your document.

• To see the Digital Accessibility Requirements and how to satisfy them, see Section III of "A Guide to Submitting Your Dissertation", linked below.
   
• For help adding your defense signature page, contact the Doctoral Studies Coordinator, Kelli Garza (kelli.garza@franklin.edu).

Then, follow the step-by-step directions in Section IV of "A Guide to Submitting Your Dissertation", linked below, to upload your dissertation to the OhioLINK ETD Center. Dissertations must meet the University's Digital Accessibility Standards to be published. This includes the requirement of providing alt text for any figures/images in the dissertation.

For more information, see the Finalizing Your Dissertation page of this guide.

For the copyright selection,  you have three options:

1. Copyright, all rights reserved. My ETD will be available under the "Fair Use" terms of copyright law. This may be required by third-party publishers you work with to publish your paper commercially.
    
2. Copyright, some rights reserved. My ETD may be copied and distributed only for non-commercial purposes and may not be modified. All use must give me credit as the original author. [This is the Creative Commons "Attribution – Noncommercial –No Derivative Works" license.]
    
3. Copyright, some rights reserved. My ETD may be copied and distributed only for non-commercial purposes and may be modified only if the modified version is distributed with these same permissions. All use must give me credit as the original author. [This is the Creative Commons "Attribution – Noncommercial –Share Alike" license.]

Which option you pick depends on what permissions you’d like to give people who want to use your work. The first option is the most restrictive option. If you select this option, anyone who wants to use your work will have to seek your permission, unless their use falls within a copyright exception such as fair use. This is a good option for students who plan to publish their work in other forms later because some publishers require authors to retain this level of copyright in order to publish with them. Another reason students might pick this option is that they want control over whether people can copy, distribute, or modify their work. 

The other two options make your work available under what is known as a Creative Commons license. These licenses let you tell others who want to use your work, up front, the conditions you are placing on their use of your work. You might choose one of these two options if you don’t plan to publish, or plan to publish with a publisher that does not require restrictive copyright. A reason many authors choose a Creative Commons license is that they want people to be able to use and share their work more openly. 

The second option applies a CC-BY-NC-ND license. This license means anyone using the work must attribute it to you, cannot use the work for commercial purposes, and cannot modify the work.  

The third option is less restrictive than the second one. It applies a CC-BY-NC-SA license. Under this license, anyone using the work must attribute it to you and cannot use the work for commercial purposes. However, they are allowed to modify your work as long as they make the work available under the same Creative Commons license you applied.

Whichever of these options you select, you still retain the copyright of your work. You will be able to use your work as you want, and will be able to grant others the right to make use of your work in whatever way you want., Your work will be available through the OhioLINK and Proquest dissertation databases, as well as the University’s Institutional Repository, FUSE. Selecting a license simply lets users know how they can use your work.

For additional information, see the following pages of our Copyright Research guide:

• Fair Use
• Publishing / Author Rights
• Publishing / Creative Commons Licenses

Yes, this is required by the doctoral studies programs. According to the Doctoral Student Handbook, and the "Guide to Submitting Your Dissertation", students should select the option to upload their dissertation to the Proquest Dissertation & Theses Global database. 

After your dissertation is published in OhioLINK, it will be transferred to Proquest (transfers occur on the 1st and 15th of each month). Once it has been transferred, Proquest will typically take 6-8 weeks to load your dissertation into the database, but it could take longer during busy times. 

Your dissertation will be available in the OhioLINK ETD Center, Proquest Dissertation & Theses Global, and Franklin's institutional repository, FUSE (Franklin University Scholarly Exchange). 

For Proquest, please note that it typically takes Proquest 6-8 weeks to load your dissertation into the database after it has been transferred (transfers occur on the 1st and 15th of each month), but it could take longer during busy times.

Dissertations are uploaded to FUSE at the end of the term in which they were submitted to the OhioLINK ETD Center.

Franklin University Library does not provide or recommend binding services. However, you have several options for getting a bound copy of your electronic dissertation.

Because your paper was uploaded to ProQuest, you may order bound copies from ProQuest. Another widely used online service is Thesis On Demand, which allows you to upload the PDF file of your paper, select binding options, and have the finished volume shipped to you.

Depending on your location, local copy shops or professional book binderies may also be able to work with your file.

Your dissertation is published in OhioLINK's ETD Center, ProQuest's Dissertation and Theses database, and the Franklin University Institutional Repository (FUSE).

If you are looking to convert your dissertation to a publishable book or article, you might want to discuss your options / next steps with your dissertation chair.

If you choose to convert your dissertation to an article, you may also want to contact the journal and inform them that your article is based on a dissertation previously published online in case they use plagiarism-checking software. For more information, see:

Here's some general information to help you convert your dissertation to a publishable article or book:

• Article:

• Book: