F4. Policies Affecting Both Master’s and Doctoral Students
Updated: May 11th, 2012
Degree award dates. Degrees are awarded twice each year, at the end of the fall semester in December and at the end of the spring semester in May. While students may file any time during a semester, the degree award date remains the same. If a student completes the degree requirements and files in the summer, the degree will be awarded as of the following fall semester.
Registration requirement for filing. Students must be registered or on approved Filing Fee status to be eligible to file for a degree. Academic Senate regulations state that in order to receive a degree in any given term, all work for the degree must be completed by the last day of the term.
Eligibility requirements for the Filing Fee. To use the Filing Fee in a fall semester, the student must have been registered in the previous spring or summer. Summer Sessions enrollment must be for a minimum of three units. To use the Filing Fee in spring, the student must have been registered in the previous fall. Filing Fee status is not available for Summer Sessions. However, students are permitted to file a thesis or dissertation while registered for Summer Sessions with the degree awarded for the end of the following fall term.
If a student has fees that have not been paid by the end of a semester, the student may be “dropped from the rolls” and removed from the degree list for that semester. If this happens, the student will need to be reinstated as a registered student prior to the degree being awarded (see chapter D in the Registration section, D1.7).
Preparing and Submitting the dissertation or thesis manuscript. All doctoral dissertations and master’s theses are to be submitted electronically. All of the requirements for preparing the manuscript for submission are provided in the dissertation filing guidelines (http://grad.berkeley.edu/policies/guides/dissertation/). Master’s theses filing guidelines are provided separately (http://grad.berkeley.edu/policies/guides/thesis/).
Use of human subjects. If the research for a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation involves the use of human subjects, the student is required to complete the “Course in the Protection of Human Subjects” (referred to as the CITI [Collaborative Institutional Review Board Training Initiative] course) and print out the certificate of completion for submission with the advancement to candidacy form. The course is available online (http://www.citiprogram.org). Students who plan research or development activities that involve human subjects must also have their work reviewed and approved by the Committee for Protection of Human Subjects (CPHS) before they begin their research. Protocols involving human subjects must be filed with the Graduate Services Degrees Unit within six months of advancement, and the research must be carried out according to the Berkeley campus policy.
The Graduate Division will not accept dissertations or theses that include materials obtained or produced without authorization from the CPHS. For more information, contact the Committee for Protection of Human Subjects (phone 642-7461; email subjects@berkeley.edu), or consult the CPHS website (http://cphs.berkeley.edu:7006).
Use of animal subjects. The Animal Care and Use Committee (ACUC) meets monthly to review written animal use protocols for compliance with federal and campus standards. Only individuals with Principal Investigator (PI) status on the Berkeley campus may submit protocols to the ACUC. Thus, any proposed use of animals by a student must be described in an approved animal use protocol for a Berkeley PI. In addition, the ACUC must be notified of any proposed plans to obtain custom antibodies from commercial sources or other laboratories. The student must submit the approved protocol for animal use to the Graduate Services Degrees Unit within six months of advancement.
The Graduate Division will not accept dissertations or theses that include material obtained or produced without authorization from the ACUC. When they file, students must submit copies of the relevant PI’s annual approval letter from the ACUC for each of the years in which the student conducted animal research. For more information, call the ACUC (642-8855), email acuc@berkeley.edu, or visit the ACUC website (http://www.acuc.berkeley.edu).
Withholding a dissertation or thesis. By default, dissertations are withheld from the UC Berkeley Library & ProQuest/UMI for 2 years. Occasionally, there are unusual circumstances in which students prefer that their thesis or dissertation not be published for a longer period of time. Such circumstances may include the disclosure of patentable rights in the work before a patent can be granted, similar disclosures detrimental to the rights of the author, or disclosures of facts about persons or institutions before professional ethics would permit. The Dean of the Graduate Division may permit the dissertation to be held for longer than 2 years, under substantiated circumstances of the kind indicated and with the endorsement and explanation from the chair of the dissertation or thesis committee.
All doctoral students must sign and submit the Dissertation Release Form (http://grad.berkeley.edu/policies/pdf/dissertation_release.pdf) along with their approval page and surveys to 318 Sproul Hall.
Copyright. The University does not provide a copyright service. Students may copyright their work independently through the Library of Congress; more information can be found online (http://www.copyright.gov). Dissertation students may elect to pay ProQuest Dissertations Publishing service to copyright their manuscripts (see Instructions for Preparing and Filing Your Thesis or Dissertation, available on the Graduate Division website (http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/policies/pdf/disguide.pdf).
See All Topics in the Category: F. Degrees, Guide to Graduate Policy
