Submitting your thesis to the Library for inclusion in Research Online, ECU’s institutional repository
ECU Library collects First Class Honours, Masters by Research, PhD and Professional Doctorate theses.
Archival copy
A full electronic version is saved in the University’s records management system for archival purposes.
Research Online
An electronic copy is added to Research Online, ECU's institutional repository, to provide worldwide open access to the thesis. ECU encourages researchers to make their publications openly accessible for the benefit of the wider community and to increase the potential for future research collaborations.
Embargo
You may delay access to the thesis for up to 5 years by selecting an embargo period. If you intend to publish parts of your thesis as a book, journal articles etc, you may need to embargo access to your thesis while waiting for acceptance of the publications. It is important that you keep the Library updated about any changes to your contact details, and developments that affect your thesis during the embargo period. Please ensure you provide an email address on the form that you will have access to long-term so that we can contact you.
Access Level
You can select to:
- release the complete thesis for world-wide access online
- release a modified version of the thesis for world-wide access online
Chapters intended for publication as journal articles, creative components, sensitive material, material intended for commercialisation, embedded media, third party copyright material etc can be removed from this version. - restrict access to current ECU students and staff only
- restrict all access permanently - if circumstances require
It is recommended that thesis authors discuss the appropriate level of access with Scholarly Communication staff if unsure.
Your thesis may be subject to confidentiality or intellectual property requirements detailed in contracts with collaborators, funding agreements or data transfer agreements. These should be considered before the principal supervisor endorses that an appropriate level of access has been selected. For any queries about how confidentiality, intellectual property, contracts, or agreements affect the suitability of access levels, please contact:
Research Contracts and Funding staff in Research Services at research-grants@ecu.edu.au
Format requirements
- PDF for the text component of your thesis.
- No security, password protection or digital signatures on the thesis files.
- Do not embed rich media ie audio or video in the thesis PDF.
You may submit your thesis for assessment as a PDF with embedded media but when submitting it to the Library, the audio and video content must be provided separately to ensure a better experience for researchers accessing your thesis, including streaming and download options. - Additional files may be provided in other formats, ie spreadsheets, software, videos etc.
If you have published any parts of your thesis
When publishing, you are often required to assign copyright of the published version to the publisher. Publishers have different policies about how you can share your publications. Many allow the Author’s Accepted Manuscript (AAM, also known as the Post-Review Version) to be deposited in a repository. The publication agreement signed on acceptance should refer to the relevant policies.
The AAM is your version of the document after peer-review, with revisions included. It does not have the publisher’s copy-editing, branding, logo, formatting, or typesetting applied. If you have completed a Thesis with Publication, chapters of your thesis may already be AAMs.
It may be appropriate to remove the published material from your thesis, create records on the repository for each individual publication, and link to these from your thesis. This can increase the impact of your research while also allowing you to comply with publishers’ policies. The repository provides download statistics and alternative metrics for your open access publications.
If you intend to publish parts of your thesis
If you intend to publish any text that closely resembles parts of your thesis, you may need to embargo access to your thesis while waiting for items to be accepted for publication. Many publishers use plagiarism checking systems to see if material has been previously published online and may reject a publication if similar text is already available within a thesis.
When all publications have been accepted and agreements about copyright and sharing made with the publishers, the embargo can be removed. Depending upon what has been agreed, the thesis made available online may have the sections that have been published replaced with links to the published versions.
Copyright and use of third-party material in your published thesis
Most materials embodying some form of human expression will be protected by copyright. These materials may include images, diagrams, tables, graphs, video, poetry, books, journals, essays, presentations, photographs, paintings, drawings, maps, scripts, song lyrics, musical scores, sheet music, films, sound recordings and computer programs.
You are not permitted to use (by copying, performing, reproducing etc.) another person’s material without the copyright owners’ consent or without a statutory exemption in the Copyright Act. If you do, you will have infringed copyright and may be sued by the copyright owner.
Written permission from the copyright holder is required to make the third-party copyright material available online within your thesis, unless:
- You are using an insubstantial part of the material.
In some cases, a small amount of the copyright material (such as a few quotes from a book) may amount to an “insubstantial part” of the material, in which case it can be used without infringing copyright.
Whether a part is substantial is a qualitative, not quantitative, judgement. A part that is important, essential, recognisable or significant is unlikely to be considered insubstantial.
See the Australian Copyright Council’s fact sheet on Quotes and Extracts.
- The use falls under a fair dealing exception.
The fair dealing for purpose of criticism or review exception may be relied on where the material included is analysed or judged, not just used as an example or to illustrate a point, provided the use is fair and sufficient acknowledgement is made.
See the Australian Copyright Council’s fact sheet on Quotes and Extracts.
Please note that the fair dealing for research or study exception does not apply when publishing material or making your thesis available online on ECU’s repository.
If none of the three exclusions above apply to the material in your thesis, and you do not have written permission to make the third-party copyright material available online within your thesis, it must be removed from the version provided. A copyright information and identification table is available to help identify third party copyright material in your thesis, and document which material can remain in the version provided for online publication in ECU’s repository.
A copyright permission template is available. Please note that the author or creator may no longer be the copyright holder as the rights may have been transferred to a publisher or others. Some publishers provide links on journal articles to systems like the Copyright Clearance Centre RightsLink, which allow you to request permission by completing an online form.
These guidelines have been compiled in consultation with ECU’s Legal and Integrity team. Further information can be found at Copyright for students and researchers.
