The Australasian Digital Theses Program

The Australasian Digital Theses Program (ADTP) is an Australian and New Zealand collaborative program designed to provide access to Australasian research and to promote it to the international community by making the digital versions of Australasian post-graduate research students’ theses freely available in full text on the Internet. Except in situations where a thesis is under embargo or restriction, the electronic version will be accessible through The University of Adelaide Library's web pages, the Library's web catalogue, the ADTP national database of Australian theses and also through web search engines.

Participation in the ADTP is compulsory at the University of Adelaide, which means that until you have lodged an electronic copy of your final thesis (post examination and the undertaking of any required amendments) with the Graduate Centre, you will not be eligible to qualify for your award.

The following sections provide general information about participating in the program.

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:

i) 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 12 months. 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 Library catalogue, the UDRR and ADTP. 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.

ii) 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 12 months 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.

iii) 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 12 months in the first instance. At the end of the twelve month 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.

iv) 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 prior to inclusion in the ADTP. 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 ADTP 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 CD 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 submitting a thesis to the ADTP in no way transfers copyright ownership.

Document Security

Theses included in the ADTP 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 ADTP 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 ADTP.

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

Steps for Depositing a Thesis

A University of Adelaide CD will be provided to you at the time you submit your thesis for examination. The CD will be labelled according to the level of access that has been approved to the electronic version of your thesis. In most cases the label will say "unrestricted access" meaning that the full text of your thesis will be made freely available on the Internet. Other possibilities are "embargoed" meaning that only the thesis citation will be made available on the Internet for the approved period of the embargo (this label encompasses restricted access categories i, ii & and iii above) and "permanently restricted" meaning that only the thesis citation will ever be made available on the web (see restricted access category iv above).

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 the CD in PDF, Word or RTF format.

For more information about creating PDF documents, please refer to: http://adt.caul.edu.au/standards/documentformats/

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 CD 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 "Thesis Lodgement for the Australasian Digital Theses Program(ADTP)/Confirmation of Amendments" form must also be provided with the digital copy of your thesis. The actual process of including your thesis on the ADTP and removing any copyright material will be carried out by Library staff and you will be notified when it is available on the ADTP database.

Further Information about the Australasian Digital Theses Program

For further information about the ADTP, please refer to the Library's web site at: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/digital/theses/

In addition the Library runs occasional workshops on digital submission; look out for details in AGCNews.