Before submitting your digital thesis to the Macquarie University Theses Collection, review the advice below on copyright and access restrictions that may be applied to the whole or part of your work.
While you own the copyright in your original work, copyright issues arise in the situations outlined below.
If your thesis contains material that should not be made publicly available such as culturally sensitive or commercial in confidence content, these matters need to be addressed at the earliest possible point during your candidacy.
If required, a request can be submitted to the Graduate Research Academy (GRA) and the Research and Research Training Committee (RRTC) requesting a moratorium. Depending on the agreements between the student and other parties, a full moratorium may be agreed to. If a moratorium is agreed to, your digital version of the thesis will be suppressed from public access, under the terms set by the GRA and the RRTC. For further information, contact gr.exam@mq.edu.au.
Students are permitted to include limited amounts of other people’s material, e.g. images, maps, and tables, in their thesis for their research and study purposes under a special exception in the Australian Copyright Act. However, this exception does not apply to the University in making the digital thesis available on Macquarie University Theses Collection. There are a number of possible resolutions to this scenario including:
Consult with your supervisor and Library staff to resolve these issues and determine the best outcome. Contact the Library at researchonline@mq.edu.au to begin this process.
If your digital thesis contains third party material (eg images from external sources), advise the library. An embargo on the thesis is not required as the Library has multiple strategies to deal with these situations.
Theses will not be automatically embargoed. However, if:
you are in negotiations with a publisher, certain embargoes can be considered.
you have not commenced negotiations with a publisher; you must contact the Library to discuss your plans.
an embargo is agreed to; it will be only for a limited period.
If you have published articles that were included in your original thesis submitted for examination, they must be included in the digital version submitted for inclusion into Macquarie University Theses Collection, as these versions must be the same.
However, if your thesis contains material you have written and had published, or material that is in the process of being published, e.g. journal articles, the publisher agreement is likely to contain restrictions on how you can use the material. This is because publishers will either ask that you transfer the copyright in the publication to them or grant them an exclusive licence to make your material available to the public.
If you believe that this is the case with your thesis and have any queries about the options, you can contact the Library by emailing researchonline@mq.edu.au. The Library will check the publisher conditions of any published articles in your thesis and follow any conditions the publisher imposes, including removing the published material from the digital thesis before it is made available in Macquarie University Theses Collection.
If you are in negotiations with a publisher, you should advise the publisher that you are required to make your thesis available digitally on Macquarie University Theses Collection. The concern is that making the full text of a thesis available on the internet will be seen as “publishing” the work and may then make it ineligible for later publication. Many publishers have no objection but it is important to confirm.
If you are in negotiation with a publisher about publishing your thesis material, in full or in part, and very little change will be required to the text as contained in the digital thesis, you should advise the publisher that it is part of a digital thesis available
In practice, many publications of theses will be substantially different to the original;
A thesis and a monograph published subsequently are rarely identical. Monographs are often based on a thesis but are usually rewritten to include new information, such as comments from examiners and reviewers and to incorporate new information.
It is worth remembering that the market for many academic books is extremely small, and publication is often economically marginal. The internet may well be the easiest way of disseminating your research. Some argue that internet availability may even increase the eventual sales of printed work by raising awareness of its existence.
In practice, published articles or chapters are usually considerably different from the corresponding section of your thesis. They are usually rewritten to include comments from examiners, reviewers or editors and incorporate new information.
However, if the publisher does not allow the material to be available on Macquarie University Theses Collection, you may request that access to your digital thesis, or part thereof be restricted (this is known as an "embargo"). The Library will consider embargo requests for a period of one year, with a possible extension to two years. Please note that embargo requests are not automatically agreed to, and we may request further information from you. You should discuss options with the Library by emailing researchonline@mq.edu.au.
If you are in negotiations with a publisher, you should advise the publisher that you are required to make your thesis available digitally. If you have not commenced negotiations with a publisher, you must contact the Library to discuss your plans. If required by the publisher, certain embargoes can be considered. You should contact researchonline@mq.edu.au to discuss your options.
If you have not commenced negotiations with a publisher, you must contact the Library to discuss your plans. If an embargo is agreed to, it will be only for a limited time.
Plagiarism will always be a concern. Some researchers feel that their work is more vulnerable in electronic form because copying in a digital environment is inherently easy; however, plagiarism has always happened, even in the pre-electronic world.
Many participating thesis authors consider publishing on the web for all to see (with document security applied) a strategy for counteracting plagiarism. A thesis lying in obscurity in a university library is possibly more susceptible.
Incorporating your thesis into Macquarie University’s Digital Thesis Collection:
will bring your work to the attention of a greater range of interested readers
will publicise your research
has the potential to enhance your professional reputation.
Publishing to the web may make it a little easier for an unscrupulous researcher to plagiarise your work, but it will also make it easier for them to be caught.
This guide to copyright provides advice for students, teachers and researchers.
For specific copyright information on thesis issues, including information on seeking permissions, contact researchonline@mq.edu.au.
Please attach any related information or approvals to your submission.
For other questions about copyright, contact the Macquarie University Copyright Coordinator copyright@mq.edu.au.