Final Form of the Thesis

Following the completion of any required amendments to the thesis to the satisfaction of the University, you are required to lodge one hard bound copy and one electronic thesis copy on disc, with the Adelaide Graduate Centre, before the degree can be conferred.

• 1 x hard bound copy for inclusion in the University Library's collections; and
• 1 x electronic copy for the Library to be made available on the web, via the Universitys digital research repository, the Library catalogue and also through web search engines.

You should make separate arrangements for the provision of a physical or digital copy of your thesis to your School/supervisors for their own collection(s).

Digital Theses at the University of Adelaide

Researchers have a responsibility to their colleagues and the wider community to disseminate a full account of their research as broadly as possible. In keeping with the University's commitment to make research data available for the use and information of other researchers and the public, the electronic copy of your thesis will be made available on the web, via the University's digital research repository, Adelaide Research & Scholarship (AR&S) and the National Library of Australia's Trove service, unless arrangements have been made to restrict access for a period of time e.g. where dissemination of the research is prevented by ethical, privacy or confidentiality matters and the thesis is under embargo.

Provision of an electronic thesis copy is compulsory at the University of Adelaide, which means that until you have lodged both the final hard and e-copies of your thesis (post examination and the undertaking of any required amendments) with the Graduate Centre, you will not be eligible to qualify for your award. Further assistance and deposit instructions for digital theses are available on the Library website.

Any questions relating to the preparation of your digital thesis should be addressed to the Library’s digital thesis contacts: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/digital/theses/contact.html

Restrictions on Access

It is the University's expectation that the full text of the vast majority of theses will be made available for unrestricted worldwide access. However, in some cases, it may be appropriate to restrict access to the electronic version of your thesis for a defined period of time. For example:

1. If you are pursuing publication of material in the thesis you may apply to the Dean of Graduate Studies (in advance of submission for examination), for an embargo to be placed on the digital copy of your thesis for a period of two years. If your application is approved, only the citation of the thesis (comprising author, title, date the degree was awarded, physical description, name of the degree for which the thesis was accepted and the Faculty/School/Discipline of enrolment) will be available via the web. For creative works such as a novel or a musical performance you may apply for an embargo upon the work within the thesis but it will not normally be granted for the exegesis. Consequently, it is important to ensure that the electronic and print copies of your thesis and exegesis are separately saved and bound respectively.
2. Should your thesis contain culturally, politically, or other sensitive data which you have given an undertaking to the sources not to disclose or make public for a limited period of time, you may apply to the Dean of Graduate Studies (in advance of submission for examination) for an embargo to be placed on both the digital and printed copies of the thesis for a period of two years in the first instance. If approved, only the citation of the thesis will appear on the web during the approved period of embargo. Extensions to the period of embargo requested in writing by you or your supervisor will be considered by the Dean of Graduate Studies on a case-by-case basis and must be lodged with the Dean no later than two months before the expected embargo expiry date. If an application for extension is not lodged two months before the expected embargo expiry date, the embargo will be lifted and the thesis copies placed in the public domain.
3. If there are any intellectual property implications and/or you have signed a Student Project Participation Agreement (SPPA) or another approved agreement, both the digital and printed copies of your thesis will automatically be embargoed for a period of two years in the first instance. At the end of the two year period the Graduate Centre, after consultation with your supervisors, any interested third party organisations and Adelaide Research & Innovation Pty Ltd, will lift the embargo, unless an extension has been approved by Adelaide Research and Innovation. Until the embargo is lifted only the citation of the thesis will be available on the web. The Library will ensure that the printed thesis will not be made available for public access. If you have signed an SPPA, you do not need to apply separately for an embargo on your thesis.
4. In limited situations where a thesis contains research subjected to a security restriction, the Dean of Graduate Studies will authorise permanent restrictions to both the digital and printed versions of the thesis; you do not need to apply separately for access to your thesis to be restricted. Where permanent restriction is approved, only an approved title of the thesis will appear in the citation to be placed on the web and the printed thesis will not be made available for public access.

Copyright Issues

You will need to check your thesis for any material that is subject to copyright. For example, if you have included any diagrams, illustrations, maps, tables, photographs, musical notation, images and/or audiovisual recordings (CD or DVD) that are not your own creation, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owners.

Make sure you apply for the necessary permissions early (as you are preparing your thesis for examination) so that you allow sufficient time to receive an answer before your final (examined and amended) thesis is ready to be lodged with the Graduate Centre.

If you cannot obtain written permission for any items, they should be clearly identified so that Library staff can remove them. An errata sheet containing a list of pages, sections and/or numbered figures that need to be deleted should be prepared and saved onto the disk together with the final thesis copy (see also the section on "Steps for Depositing a Thesis" below).

Except where copyright is owned by others, copyright ownership of the thesis remains with you as the author. This will remain the case unless you choose to transfer it to another entity; the act of making a digital copy of the thesis available on the web in no way transfers copyright ownership.

Extensive information about copyright in the University context is available on the web at www.adelaide.edu.au/copyright/study_research/

Any questions relating to the identification, acknowledgement or removing of copyrighted material in your digital thesis should be addressed to the Library’s digital thesis contacts: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/digital/theses/contact.html

Document Security

Theses included in the Library's digital research repository can be read or printed only. No changes can be made to the document, and copying and pasting is not enabled.

Publishing Issues

It is important for you to be aware that making your thesis available on the web is equivalent to publishing it.

Some publishers (notably book publishers) may regard inclusion of a thesis on the web as a prior publication and consequently may not wish to publish the work themselves. Some major journal publishers accept electronic publication of theses and are happy to publish articles based on these theses.

If you have a relevant pre-existing contract with a publisher (or some other third party who funded, or collaborated with your research) in regard to your thesis, you are advised to seek further advice on this matter from the publisher(s) concerned.

If the form of the thesis is a collection of published papers, it is possible that copyright permission may have been transferred to the publisher(s), and explicit permission will be required to include the papers in the University's digital research repository.

You do not require permission from the University to publish elsewhere.

Steps for Depositing a Thesis

Once the examination process is complete and you have made any required amendments to the satisfaction of the University, you will need to copy the final version of your thesis onto a disc in Portable Document Format (PDF).  Further information is available on the Library’s web site at:

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/digital/theses/guidelines.html

The electronic copy must be identical to the thesis that has been approved for the award of the degree. Do not set document security as this will be done by the Library. An errata sheet listing those third party  copyrighted page(s), section(s) and/or figure(s) contained within the thesis that need to be deleted by
Library staff should also be saved onto the disc where applicable.

The electronic copy of the thesis must be provided to the Adelaide Graduate Centre when you lodge the paper copies required at the completion of examination. A completed ‘Final Thesis Lodgement form must also be provided with the digital copy of your thesis.

The actual process of including your thesis in the AR&S and removing any copyright material will be carried out by Library staff and you will be notified when it is available on the AR&S database.

Further information about the University’s Digital Theses Program

For further information about including your thesis in the University’s Digital Theses Program, please refer to the Library’s website at www.adelaide.edu.au/library/digital/theses