Registering for copyright
Students own the copyright to their thesis and you may wish to register your work with the Library of Congress. For a fee, ProQuest will register your thesis at the time of submission. For more information on copyrighting your thesis, review the information on the ProQuest website and the U.S. Copyright Office website.
If an official copyright is obtained, the copyright page is the second page in the thesis, but numbering is suppressed, just as it is in the title page.
The thesis copyright page contains the 1) author’s name, 2) the date, and 3) the statement, “All Rights Reserved,” centered on the page.
Using Copyrighted Material
If you use copyrighted material in a limited way, permission to quote is not necessary. However, if you use extensive material from a copyrighted work, you must obtain the owner’s permission in writing. The publisher usually has the authority to grant permission to quote excerpts from the copyrighted work or can refer requests to the copyright owner or designated representative. The copyright owner may charge a fee for permission to quote. The source should appear in the References Cited section. Include the written release to use copyrighted material in an appendix to the thesis.
In many fields, it is common for candidates to publish their research results prior to completion of the degree and to include material from these prior publications, in whole or in part, in the thesis. To the extent that this practice encourages student participation in the wider research enterprise and a wider dissemination of student research results, we encourage departments to adopt this model.
Copyright permission is required if:
Article already published
°Publisher permission
°Co-author permission
Article accepted for publication
°Publisher permission
°Co-author permission
Article submitted but not yet accepted/rejected for publication
°Co-author permission
Future article submission
°No permissions required
OGS does not have a Copyright permission form. Permissions may be in the form of an email. Add permissions at the end of the thesis or upload in ProQuest
Permission to include previously published material.
The distribution of a thesis or dissertation by the Library and access to dissertations through UMI (ProQuest) Dissertation Publishing is a form of publication. Most journal and book publishers require authors to sign over copyright to articles or book chapters to the publisher. Publishers’ copyright policies may, or may not, allow re-publication of these articles as part of a candidate’s thesis or dissertation. Additionally, re-publication of journal articles as part of a thesis or dissertation is not explicitly covered under section 107 of the copyright act; the so- called “fair use” section.
Thus, in the case where copyright of articles or book chapters included in a thesis or dissertation has been turned over to an external publisher, it is the responsibility of the candidate to obtain permission from the publisher to include these materials in a thesis or dissertation. Copies of this permission should be uploaded as part of the thesis or dissertation as directed by the ProQuest website.
To obtain permission, candidates should initially look at the publisher’s website. Some publishers (e.g., The American Chemical Society and Elsevier) provide a document or policy statement on their website that explicitly allows materials produced by the candidate to be included in their thesis or dissertation without obtaining explicit permission. Others (e.g., IEEE, SEG and ASME) provide links and directions as to how to obtain the necessary permission from the publisher.
In these latter cases, please be aware, that despite a candidate’s best efforts, publishers are not obligated to respond to requests for permission to re-publish. If a candidate has attempted to contact a publisher but has received no response, existing Copyright Law requires that this non-response be interpreted as a denial of permission to re-publish.
Permission to include multi-authored papers.
In addition to the above permissions, in some disciplines, it is normal to consider the inclusion of materials that are multi-authored in a thesis or dissertation. This is particularly true when collaboration and co-operation are required for researchers to undertake basic research efforts at the frontiers of their disciplines, either because of the nature of the work or the nature of the facilities involved. For materials included in a thesis or dissertation, however, it is presumed that the candidate is the primary owner of the intellectual activities described.
If co-authored material is to be included in a candidate’s thesis or dissertation, the Thesis Committee and the Department Head/Division Director of the candidate’s home department/division must approve of the appropriateness of the inclusion of this material in the thesis or dissertation. Additionally, if the material was co-authored by authors other than the candidate’s advisor or thesis committee members, the candidate must obtain permission from each co-author who is not on the candidate’s committee to reproduce the material as part of the thesis or dissertation. Copies of this permission should be uploaded as part of the thesis or dissertation as directed by the ProQuest website.