How To Submit Your Reading Committee Signature Page

If you are a Ph.D., J.S.D., D.M.A., or Engineer student, use this procedure to virtually gather signatures from each reading committee member required for your dissertation or thesis submission.

Upon completion, you will fully satisfy both the title page and reading committee signature page requirements.

Step 1: Obtain Email Approval from Each Reader

Email each reading committee member to request their approval of your signature page for the dissertation or thesis. Once you have collected their responses, you will need to upload the email approvals from each reader to the Axess eForms platform.

• You may use this sample request template as your guide.
• Use Stanford email addresses: send your approval requests from your Stanford email, and to your committee's Stanford emails (exception for outside readers).
• Save individual copies of each email approval thread as a doc or pdf file.
  • Be sure the to/from email detail is visible in these files.
  • To speed eForm processing, we recommend that you name each individual file with the reading committee member’s last name. For example, "email approval_leland.pdf"

  Step 2: Confirm Reading Committee in Axess

  You will need to confirm the departmentally approved reading committee members are listed correctly in your Dissertation & Thesis Center in Axess, under the section titled "Confirm Reading Committee." Specifically,

  • Check for duplicate reading committee members
  • Check for missing reading committee members
  • Check for reading committee members who were removed from your committee but still appear in Axess

  If the reading committee is not correctly listed, STOP! Contact your department Student Services Officer. They will help you with any necessary updates before proceeding to Step 3.

  Step 3: Submitting the eForm

  Log into Axess and navigate to the Student eForms portal (My Academics > Petitions & Forms) quick link. Next, select "Browse Available Forms", and scroll to the "Reading Committee Signature Page Sign Off", where you will be prompted to upload a saved copy of each email confirmation, as previously outlined in Step 1.

  Note: The Reading Committee Signature eForm type will not be available in Axess until the first day of the quarter you plan to submit.

  After the forms are processed and accepted, you will be notified in an email. At that time, you can continue submitting the dissertation or thesis in Axess.

  To accommodate this processing time, we recommend you submit this form at least 48 hours prior to the dissertation and thesis deadline of the effective quarter. This will allow sufficient time for staff to process and enter forms.