Electronic Theses and Dissertations: Supplemental Files
Rice University Theses and Dissertations Supplemental File Guidelines
Supplementary files are separate attachments that enhance your thesis and can be important in furthering the understanding of your research. Supplementary files may include research data, computer code, audio or video files, and hi-resolution images or maps. If you are unsure about whether content should be included within your thesis or as a separate document, please consult with your advisor.
Supplemental files are submitted with your thesis PDF via the THESIS.RICE.EDU system. The following guidelines provide recommended practices for formatting supplemental files.
Guidelines
Copyrighted Materials
If your thesis includes copyrighted materials, include any associated permissions or release forms as appendices within your thesis PDF. Do not submit as a separate supplemental file. For more on copyright guidance, see Copyright Checklist for Theses and Dissertations.
Documenting Supplemental Material
If you are including supplemental material in your submission, it is recommended to include an appendix within your thesis document which contains an overall description and file name(s). This assists in associating your thesis to any additional supplementary material, as well as providing further information and context about the file(s).
- Example: Appendix
Size
The maximum file size for each supplemental file should be no larger than 100 MB or 10GB in total.
File Names
Filenames should only include letters, numbers, underscore or dashes.
Do not use spaces.
Do not use special characters such as: " / \ : * ? < > [ ] & $ .
Keep the filename short (aim for less than 32 characters)
- Examples: dataset.zip, figure01.png, supplemental.pdf
Best Practices by File Type
Audio/Video
To display your media in browser (instead of downloading), use MP3 format for audio or MP4 for video. Filenames cannot contain spaces or special characters.
To improve accessibility, it is recommended to include a text transcription for audio content or provide captions for video. Either SRT or VTT closed caption formatting is supported. Closed caption files should be uploaded with the same filename as the source video file (e.g. myvideo.mp4.srt).
Datasets
Datasets are usually comprised of multiple files. In such cases it is recommended to package all the files in an archival format (e.g. ZIP, 7Z, TAR, etc.) Include a manifest file to describe the contents (e.g. a readme text file). For suggestions on creating a manifest/readme file, please see Cornell University’s Guide to Writing "readme" Style Metadata or Dryad’s guidance on readme files for datasets.
Images
In most cases, access-quality image formats may be sufficient for display purposes, such as PNG or JPG. For high resolution images it is recommended to save the image in a JPEG2000 format (*.j2). The JPEG2000 format provides enhance online viewing of graphically dense images by allowing a user to zoom in to view greater detail.
Fondren library can help convert your TIF files to JP2 format upon request.
Presentations
Presentation files can come in many formats, such as PowerPoint. Such formats are proprietary and many not be viewable by all readers. Over time such formats may become unreadable as software becomes obsolete or earlier versions are not rendered properly in later versions. To ensure your presentation retains the original look and layout it is recommended to convert any presentation files to PDF format. It is recommended to embed fonts, perform optical character recognition (OCR) to ensure text is searchable and provide descriptions for any images. For guidance on creating accessible PDFs, please see this Fondren guide.