E-Theses & Theses Collection: Information for Students

     For an E-Thesis enquiry or deposit contact Library Research Support 

openaccess@swansea.ac.uk

You can:

• make a full-text copy of your thesis available for others to read immediately
• make a redacted copy available for others to read immediately*
• restrict access temporarily
• restrict access permanently

Provide a PDF full text version of your successful thesis including any corrections requested by examiners. The Library needs a preservation copy even if you opt-out of making your e-thesis available to the public.

• Consider your funder requirements.
• Copyright considerations* - does your thesis include 3rd party content for which you will need permission? Obtain permission when required, keep records, evaluate risk.
• Complete the author's e-thesis deposit agreement.

Deposit via openaccess@swansea.ac.uk 

Full copyright guidance is available from our Copyright Library Guide.
See the Keeping Your E-Thesis Legal handout for copyright guidance and rights risk management as you prepare your thesis.

Including copyright material in your thesis

Third party copyright material

You will need to seek permission to include any third party copyright material in an electronic version of your thesis, which is publicly available online.  In the print version of a thesis you may normally include limited amounts without seeking permission, provided it is adequately acknowledged and referenced according to academic convention.

What is 3^rd party copyright content?

• Any material which is not your own or where you have assigned your rights over to another, e.g. a journal article where you may have transferred rights to a publisher.
• It includes long extracts of text, illustrations, adaptations, figures, tables, maps, charts, tables, photos, images etc. If in doubt, always ask permission.

It is beneficial to obtain permission to include copyright material in your thesis as you progress through your studies, rather than attempting to contact rights holders when you are approaching completion.  The Library provide regular postgraduate research training sessions to help you understand copyright and E-Thesis requirements.

How to seek permission to include third party material in the electronic version of your thesis
Identify and contact the rights holder(s). This could be an author, a publisher, an illustrator etc. When using material from published sources, contact the publisher in the first instance.  Include the following key points in your correspondence:

• What are you asking permission to do? Include information on any ISBNs, title, page numbers, extract required.
• Explain where you are seeking to re-use it (eg. online thesis).
• Explain why you want to do this.
• Include your contact details.

If you fail to receive a reply, assume that you cannot use the content, as you do not have permission. Occasionally you may be asked to pay a fee to re-use content. You are not obliged to do this and can choose to remove this material from the electronic public version of your thesis.

What to do with permission

• Indicate that you have received permission from the copyright holder at the appropriate point in your thesis. Add a statement along the lines of ‘Permission to reproduce A has been granted by B.’ Keep records of any correspondence you obtain from rights holders.

If permission is refused or you cannot clear copyright for all material included in the thesis, you will not be able to make the full version of the thesis publicly available online.

 You may deposit two electronic versions of the thesis:

• The complete version, including the third party content will be stored securely in a controlled area of the Research Information System (RIS). This will not be made publicly available.
• A redacted content version: the second edited version of the thesis with all third party material removed can be released publicly via Cronfa.
• Please clearly identify multiple files as full version or redacted version PDFs.

Please note that it may be necessary to restrict access to the thesis if you have failed to gain third party content permission, in addition to obtaining a formal bar on access until any future journal articles are published.

Go to CRONFA

Following the examination and completion of any required corrections:

• Convert the final version of the thesis to a PDF file.
• Name your file appropriately and include your student number, e.g. 2017davies123456.pdf. 

Swansea University requires a preservation copy for the research archive even if you opt-out of making your e-thesis available to the public.  

• Review the level of access you wish others to have to your thesis
• Check that you have completed and signed the E-Thesis Deposit Agreement
• Send a PDF copy of the agreement and a full-text PDF copy of the awarded thesis to openaccess@swansea.ac.uk  
• We will create a repository record and can apply an embargo period to the full-text, open access version in Cronfa if required.

The E-Thesis Deposit Agreement offers an opportunity for the completing student to supply an embargo expiry date to the full-text e-thesis. Access can be restricted for one year, two years etc. up to a maximum of five years. 

For example:

• Publication pending (journal article(s), monograph)

If a formal bar on access to both the paper and electronic versions is required, the student must indicate their intention as early as possible via the Head of College/School or nominee. The request must state the title of the work, and the reasons for a bar being placed.

For example:

• Commercial contract
• Patent pending
• Third-party copyright inclusion where permission cannot be obtained or redacted
• Ethical considerations, national security or data protection
• Other substantial reason

If the thesis has been commercially sponsored and the student has signed an agreement which does not permit the work to be publicly available, whether for a limited period of time or in perpetuity, this should be indicated on the open access deposit agreement.

The author will still be required to supply a full-text electronic copy of the thesis for preservation but Swansea University will undertake not to make it publicly available online in accordance with the terms of the deposit agreement. An option for submitting a second redacted content version is available if the thesis contains third-party copyright content, or sensitive material the author wishes to remove.

Theses are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Environmental Regulations 2004 (EIR).

Publisher policies and attitudes to prior publication of a thesis 

The Scholarly Communication community maintain a database that provides a flavour of the current publisher policies and attitudes towards authors who make their thesis openly accessible in their institution's repository. Some authors are concerned that providing an open access copy of their thesis could impact on their ability to publish the work as a monograph. The database provides information about specific publishers but it is important to remember that you are able to restrict access to your thesis by using the deposit declaration agreement when you provide your e-copy to the Library, or at a later stage if required.

In general terms, the small numbers of theses that are published as books are likely to be significantly revised in the period between dissertation and book publication. Most publishers will accept proposals based on dissertations, even if the original work is available in an open access repository. We suggest that you check the policy details associated with prior-publication with the individual publisher.

Access the Database

Other reading:
Do Open Access Electronic Thesis and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities? Findings from a 2011 Survey of Academic Publishers 

Open Access and the Graduate Author: A Dissertation Anxiety Manual

Compliance with the UK Research Councils’ (RCUK) policy on open access:

• The UKRI (RCUK) document "Research Councils Training Grants Terms & Conditions" Requirement TGC11.5 (June 2019) states that the institution must support RCUK funded Ph.D. students to publish the results of their research in the institution's repository as soon as possible after award. A full text version should be available within a maximum of 12 months following award. 

Compliance with the research data policies of the individual Research Councils:

• Research Councils’ policies on research data require data generated or collected by research that supports published research findings (which could include e-theses) to be preserved and (where no commercial, ethical, or legal restrictions apply) made publicly available. Clarification on the EPSRC data access requirement can be found here.
• Contact the Research Data support team for information on sharing your data or visit the research data management guidance here. We can link your e-thesis record to your research data if you provide a URL.

We reserve the right to contact completing students to check that they have made an open access deposit.

Visit the online University Student Privacy Statement.