Dissertations
When you submit your dissertation through ProQuest, one of the options is "I want major search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo) to discover my work through ProQuest."
An answer of "Yes" or "Include" means that the full text of your thesis or dissertation (after any selected embargo period expires) would be searchable and discoverable through search engines, such as Google, so that researchers may discover your work beyond ProQuest or Open Scholarship.
In Open Scholarship we are not able to restrict third-party search, so we treat a "No" as a permanent embargo (which will display as 100 years). "No" or "Exclude" means that a citation, including your name, dissertation title, and abstract, will appear in Open Scholarship and can be found through online searches; however, online access to the actual dissertation or its content will not be available. This permanent embargo will take precedence over any other embargo period you may have selected, including if you did not select an embargo at all. You may change the length of your embargo and allow online access to your dissertation at any time by emailing digital AT wustl DOT edu.
For doctoral candidates, if you do not want your work indexed by search engines on the ProQuest site, but do want it in Open Scholarship, you can contact Digital Library Program Services to make that request after submission.
For more information, please contact Digital Library Program Services: digital@wumail.wustl.edu
Theses
Third-party search is no longer an option for master's thesis candidates (as of 2015).
