Universities in developed countries have adopted the concept that compels students to submit their thesis/Dissertations electronically using collaborative tools such as IR. Despite the fact that most universities in Kenya, Egerton University included, have implemented Institutional Repositories there is no evidence that they have fully adopted the concept of online submission of Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). Most of these Universities offer academic programmes up to Master and PhD levels and therefore there exist huge opportunities for ETDs technologies. This paper seeks to identify the challenges that have contributed to non-adoption of ETDs for PhD students. The paper also seeks to explore and identify huge opportunities that are available for implementation of ETDS. It is hope that the findings of this paper will benefit the stakeholders, which include library, academic division, Faculty members and department of postgraduate studies as well as PhD students themselves to understanding fully the concept of ETDs and the best approach of implementing them. Barriers to implementation of ETDs will also be identified and suggestions offered on how to overcome them. The study will use descriptive case study research design strategy. Purposive sampling technique will used to identify the participants. The target population in the study will be drawn from library staff, academic division, postgraduate office, faculty members and ICT staff from Egerton University. Questionnaires will be used to collect data from selected respondents. Descriptive statistics such as percentages, pie charts, graphs, frequency tables will be used to analyze data.

On the author:

Kenneth K. Rotich is currently the Electronic Resources Librarian at Egerton University, Kenya and has previously served as Systems Librarian for St. Paul's University, Kenya for 8 years where he was in-charge of implementation and maintenance of library systems. He is passionate and has developed expertise in Information Communication Technology (ICT) over the years. His interest in ICT has enabled him to deploy several systems in a number of libraries. The systems include Dspace for Institutional Repositories, Koha for library automation and VuFind as discovery tool. He is also a consultant and resource person in library related ICT areas. He has written and presented papers on areas such implementation of discovery tools, Library Information Profession education and disseminating agricultural information. He obtained a Bachelor in Information Sciences at Moi University, Kenya, in 2007 and a Master in Library and Information Sciences at Kenyatta University, Kenya, in 2013.