This presentation shares recent research exploring how and why students choose to use or not use the available ORCID and embargo options when submitting their research for publication in the institutional repository. The initial assumption was that students choosing to embargo their research were planning to publish and would therefore find ORCID a helpful tool going forward.

However, it was found that students who chose to embargo often did not bother to sign up with ORCID and those that did sign up with ORCID did not always embargo their research. It became clear that students either did not understand the connection between these two options, did not understand ORCID, or had unknown reasons for choosing one but not the other.

For this reason, a research study consisting of four different surveys, one of which was sent to each student after submitting a thesis or dissertation, was designed to address the options they chose when submitting their research. Each survey consisted of either three or four questions and asked them to explain their decisions regarding embargoing and using ORCID. We received a 75% response rate.

This presentation shares the results of this research with the goal that librarians and graduate school professionals will be able to make well educated decisions about the necessary metadata, workshops, LibGuides, and other tools necessary to better aid students in the ETD submission process.