As part of the requirements for graduate level degrees, students must complete a thesis for a Master's degree and/or dissertation for a Ph.D. Dissertations and theses are submitted to the academic department and the Graduate College and are made available through the University Library. Since 2010, all theses and dissertations are electronically deposited into IDEALS, the Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship, the University's open repository of scholarly content.

ProQuest Dissertations is a comprehensive collection of citations to dissertations and theses worldwide from 1861 to the present day. Full text PDFs are available for many Ph.D. dissertations added since 1997 and some older graduate works.