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UCLA’s New Electronic Thesis & Dissertation Guidelines

UCLA’s New Electronic Thesis & Dissertation Guidelines

Filing your thesis or dissertation at UCLA looks a little different now. As of April 2026, every electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) submitted to the Division of Graduate Education must meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA web accessibility standards. This change brings UCLA into compliance with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and ensures graduate scholarship is usable by readers with disabilities, including those using screen readers and other assistive technology.

If you’re planning to file in the next year, here’s a clean breakdown of what is required and which tools and resources will actually make your life easier:

What to Know:

1. Accessibility is now a certification requirement.

This is the biggest shift. When you submit through the ETD filing application, you’ll be asked to certify that your manuscript PDF meets accessibility requirements. It’s no longer optional or aspirational; it’s part of the submission itself.

2. The six components of an accessible PDF:

UCLA outlines six elements that determine whether your PDF is compliant:

  • PDF tags: markup that lets assistive technology navigate headings, lists, links, tables, paragraphs, and other structural elements.

  • Tables must include header rows and columns (not just visual styling).

  • Reading order: tags and headings need to follow the document’s logical flow.

  • Alternative text (alt-text): every image, figure, chart, or visual element needs a meaningful description.

  • Color: sufficient contrast between text and background, and never relying on color alone to communicate meaning.

  • Metadata: author, title, and language fields filled in under the document’s properties.

3. Build accessibility in before you export to PDF.

This is the single most important piece of advice on UCLA’s page: it is much easier to apply accessibility in your authoring tool (Word, LaTeX) than to remediate a finished PDF. If you wait until the end, you’re going to be doing tedious cleanup work in Acrobat. Start with the right structure from the beginning.

4. Filing deadlines for 2025–2026:

These deadlines apply to registered students and students on filing fee. By each date, the manuscript must be submitted via ProQuest and approved by your committee:

  • Fall 2025 — December 12, 2025

  • Winter 2026 — March 20, 2026

  • Spring 2026 — June 12, 2026

  • Summer 2026 — September 11, 2026

Your degree award date is the last day of the term in which all requirements are completed, which is also the same as the filing deadline above.

5. Doctoral Hooding Ceremony deadline

If you are a doctoral candidate hoping to walk in the Spring 2026 Hooding Ceremony and appear in the hooding booklet, you must complete all degree requirements by June 1, 2026. “Complete” here means:

  • The online ETD Filing Application is submitted.

  • All committee members have reported approval (and the passing of the final oral exam, if applicable) through http://go.grad.ucla.edu . 

  • The final PDF, including any requested revisions from the Division of Graduate Education, has been submitted via ProQuest.

  • You’ve received the confirmation email from the Division of Graduate Education.

6. Before you file, double-check your basics.

A few prerequisites that are easy to overlook:

  • Make sure you’re registered and enrolled for the term, or that you’ve applied for Filing Fee status.

  • Review the Graduation Requirements page on http://grad.ucla.edu .

  • Verify and update your lived and legal name through the Registrar. This is what will appear on the published manuscript, so it's worth confirming early.

Useful Tips & Tools

For Microsoft Word users:

  • UCLA’s accessible Word templates (available on UCLA Box): Start here. They have the right structure built in, which saves you from retrofitting later.

  • Microsoft’s official accessibility guidance: a step-by-step walkthrough for making any Word document accessible if you'd rather not use the template.

  • Always export with “Save As” → PDF. This preserves the accessibility settings you’ve built in. Printing to PDF or using a third-party converter often strips this metadata out.

For LaTeX users:

LaTeX accessibility is genuinely harder than Word accessibility, but the tooling has improved:

For checking and remediating PDFs:

  • Adobe Acrobat Pro is free for UCLA students through Digital and Technology Solutions (DTS). Its built-in Accessibility Checker is the most reliable way to verify your PDF before submission, and it lets you add or fix tags if needed.

  • Microsoft Word’s Accessibility Checker is useful for catching issues earlier in the workflow.

  • WebAIM Contrast Checker is a quick web tool for verifying your color choices meet contrast standards.

  • Section 508 alt-text guide highlights best practices for writing image descriptions that actually communicate something useful.

UCLA-specific resources worth bookmarking:

One more thing: hard copies

If you want a bound physical copy of your dissertation (for yourself, your committee, your parents, your office wall), UCLA directs students to the UC Bindery at Berkeley. You can order during or after the filing process.

Conclusion

The accessibility requirement is the headline change, but the practical implication is simple: start with an accessible template and check your work as you go. Don’t write 200 pages in a default Word document and then try to fix everything the week before your deadline! UCLA has invested in genuinely useful templates and guides, attend a workshop or drop-in hour early, build accessibility into your process from chapter one, and the filing itself becomes a formality rather than a scramble.

Good luck, and congratulations in advance!