United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association The mission of the USETDA is to support ETD professionals and ETD programs in the U.S. by enabling and encouraging the establishment of state-wide ETD associations, linking individuals and associations, developing and disseminating information of importance on best practices, increasing educational services to ETD programs, increasing ETD program productivity and cost savings, and supporting the expansion of the NDLTD and other international ETD initiatives including digitization and digital preservation initiatives, institutional repository development and the promotion of online open access distribution of academic research materials.