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Description: Abstract Background and rationale: Some Bachelor and Master students produce original research which is then reported in their respective Bachelor and Master Theses and later indexed in electronic databases. To prevent research waste and redundant works from being produced scholars recommend starting projects with systematic syntheses of the existing body of research. In line with this recommendation I tried to identify all Swiss social work Bachelor and Master theses written in French published so far but could only find a small number (881 theses) on the RERO DOC electronic database with my scoping search. Primary objective: To identify and summarize in which bibliographic databases Swiss social work Bachelor and Master Theses written in French published by HES-SO students are currently indexed. Secondary objectives: To identify reasons for not including Swiss social work Bachelor and Master Theses in bibliographic databases according to 4 higher education institutional librarians. To obtain a list of the titles of all Swiss social work Bachelor and Master Theses written in French included or not included in bibliographic databases. Methods I sent a unique email including questions on key electronic databases in which Bachelor and Master Theses are indexed along with reasons for not indexing such works to the librarians of 9 Swiss Higher Education institutions on January 9, 2020. I summarized their qualitative answers in this manuscript and based on their suggestions developed sets of searches in RERO Explore and Swissbib to identify all Bachelor and Master Theses written in French and published between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2019. I extracted search results, purposively selected 5 Bachelor theses from each institution along with a total of 20 Master theses and followed a 3-steps search process to identify these works in Google, Google Scholar, RERO DOC, RERO Explore, OpenGrey, CORE, WorldCat, Swissbib and RAPS. Results: All 4 (100%) HETS librarians replied to my invitation email within a week. 6 (66.7%) institutional librarians suggested electronic databases in which Swiss social work Bachelor and Master Theses could be found. The following databases were suggested: RERO Explore Fribourg, RERO Explore Neuchâtel et Jura, RERO Explore Geneva, RERO explore (general), RERO DOC, Archive Ouverte UNIGE and Renouvaud. The most commonly suggested databases were RERO Explore (3 out of 6 librarians, 50%) and RERO DOC (3 out of 6 librarians, 50%). 586 Bachelor theses published by HETS Fribourg and 883 Bachelor theses published by HETS Geneva were found searching RERO Explore. 915 Bachelor theses published by HETS Lausanne and 1059 Bachelor theses published by HETS Valais were found searching Swissbib. 164 Master theses were found searching Swissbib. All 20 purposively selected HETS Bachelor theses could be found in Swissbib (100%), which proved to be the most inclusive database. 18 could be found in Worldcat (90%), 17 in Google Scholar (85%), 16 in Google (80%), 15 in RERO Explore (75%), 5 in RERO DOC (25%) and 5 in CORE (25%). None could be found in both OpenGrey and RAPS (0%). A total of 20 Master theses were selected (5 purposively and 15 randomly) to assess in which databases they were indexed. 13 out 20 (65%) HES-SO Master theses could be found in Swissbib, Worldcat and Renouvaud. 11 (55%) could be found in Google Scholar and 6 (30%) in Google. None could be found in RERO DOC, RERO Explore, OpenGrey, CORE or RAPS. 7 Master theses (35%) could not be found in any of these databases. Limitations: Limitations include but are not limited to: the project was conducted by a single non-researcher author, small sample of included theses, purposive selection, inconsistencies within the data and irreproducible free searches. Conclusions: Due to inconsistencies between different sources of data (number of students, number of theses) it is unlikely that all Swiss Bachelor Theses written in French can be reliably identified without in-depth detective work. Despite this most Bachelor theses appear to be included in Swissbib. Social work master theses appeared to be easier to identify exhaustively but a fewer number were indexed in bibliographic databases. The most common reason for not including bachelor or master theses in electronic databases was confidential contents within the theses. Bachelor theses from HETS Lausanne published from 2018 onwards are no longer being stored or indexed and will therefore not appear in electronic databases. Creating and enforcing use of a unique classification or classifier for Swiss Bachelor Theses included in RERO Explore and Swissbib would increase their discoverability and facilitate analysis by interested parties. Developers of the RERO Explore database should consider adding supplementary basic options to facilitate use of their electronic database. Funding: No funding was received for this work. Registration: See manuscript version 3. Data and materials: https://osf.io/jvxpd/files Keywords: Social work, indexing, Switzerland, bachelor thesis, cross-sectional analysis, HES-SO Suggested citation: Vuillème, M. (January 27, 2020). How are Swiss social work Bachelor and Master Theses written in French indexed in bibliographic databases? A brief cross-sectional analysis. Retrieved from https://osf.io/zytem/