It could be argued that ALL theses and dissertations are created at colleges and universities, and many have their publishers.
Library archives at schools keep records of all doctoral publications for future reference and to showcase the knowledge of the institution. Much of this knowledge has been available only to students, faculty, and alumni of the school. More often, this information is being made Open Access for all to use. For example, nine of the University of California make doctoral materials freely available.
One way to get at this content is to use a targeted Google search to search only education sites for open-access dissertation materials in institutional repositories. To do this, type the text string below in the Google search (or click the link below) to get an idea of what you can find and how to get it. In addition to theses and dissertations, these sites often point to other Open Access resources as well.
site:edu repository dissertations theses open access
Sometimes we won't have the materials you need in our holdings. When this happens you can try searching Google or Google Scholar Sometimes you can find the Dissertation information and a link to the full text!
To access Google Scholar it works best to use the link on the library Articles and Databases tabs. Click the link to take you to the WIU version of Google Scholar. Then go to the left side menu and use the Advanced search. Add your search term looking for all the words. Then add ProQuest Dissertations & Theses in the Return articles published blank.
If you find a theses or dissertation that would be useful to your research but the library does not have it, and you can't find an open access copy, you can usually order it through interlibrary loan. Use the link below to access the ILLiad service.