RSP - Publishing Support: Theses

Third Party Permissions

In order to make your thesis available in the institutional repository, you will need to seek permission if you want to include any third party copyright material. Traditionally it has been accepted that third party copyright material can be included in a print version of a thesis without seeking permission. However, it is good academic practice to do this and this is essential if your thesis is going to be made available online.

Please note that you will not be penalised if it is not possible to gain permission, either because permissions are not granted or because it would be too expensive to obtain permissions. This will simply mean that we will not be able to make your thesis available online. The outcome of your examination will not be affected in anyway. No student will be required to make any payments to copyright holders for material they wish to include in their thesis.
 

What to seek permission for

You will need permission for any third party copyright material you wish to include in your thesis, e.g. extracts from publications, or illustrations such as images, maps, photographs, tables etc.

If you have included a short quotation from a published work and have acknowledged and referenced it appropriately it is probably not necessary for you to seek permission from the copyright holder. Copyright law does not define what is meant by a short extract, and if you are in doubt it is probably best to seek permission.

If you intend to include material that you have published elsewhere (e.g. journal articles) you need to check that the publisher will allow you to include these as part of your thesis. The easiest way to do this is to contact the publisher directly and check. You will need to give the complete citation for the published work that you wish to include and specifically ask permission to include this work in within the electronic version of your thesis which will be made available in Coventry University's online research repository

How to seek permissions

In order to seek permission to include third party copyright material within the electronic version of your thesis you will need to contact the rights holder. The rights holder of the work you want to use may be the author, illustrator or publisher etc. 

We would suggest that you contact the publisher in the first instance. Many publishers give details on their websites of how to seek permissions and who to contact. Look for information on rights / permissions / copyright clearance. If the publisher does not hold the rights to the work they should forward your enquiry to whoever does. 

The Society of Authors provides guidance on how to ask for permissions and the circumstances when this is likely to be required. The database WATCH (Writers Artists and Their Copyright Holders) maintained by the University of Texas is a useful resource when searching for copyright holders, especially within the arts.

If the rights holder does not reply immediately, you may want to contact them again. Please note that you may not regard a lack of response as permission to include third party material in your thesis.

A template letter to request copyright permissions is available here:

Results of a Permission Request

If permission is granted you should indicate this at the appropriate point of your thesis, e.g. 'Permission to reproduce [make reference to the exact material included] has been granted by [name of the rights holder].' You should keep copies of any letters or emails that you receive from rights holders.

If you have been unable to secure all the necessary third party copyright permissions for your thesis you will not be able to make the full version available online. You will still be required to deposit this copy, and it will be held securely. However, you may wish to make an edited version publicly available. If this is the case you should save an additional copy of your thesis, remove the relevant material and insert a place holder at this point in the document, e.g. Figure (Text/Chart/Diagram/image etc.) has been removed due to Copyright restrictions. Remember that you need to deposit both the full and the edited version of your thesis, and that these should be given different filenames.
 

Thesis by Portfolio/Publication

For those undertaking a PhD by portfolio / prior publication, we would recommend where possible getting publisher permissions for us to include the final publications in the version of the thesis which we make available online. Where an author has signed a Copyright Transfer Agreement with a publisher this will otherwise restrict our ability to share this content, and we may therefore only be able to make a limited version of the thesis publicly available online. 

Many publishers will allow a particular version (e.g. a pre-print or post-print) of an article to be included in an institutional repository and you may be able to include these versions in the electronic version of your thesis rather than including the publisher’s PDF(s) if permissions are not otherwise forthcoming. This information may be included in the copyright transfer agreement or licence to publish which you signed prior to publication. Alternatively, ask your publisher directly.

Depending on the type of output you produce, you may also need the permission of co-creators / joint copyright holders. Again, we would recommend that you seek this permission as you go along and keep a record of the permissions you have obtained.

For further advice regarding this please contact your Faculty Principal Registry Officer or the Repository Development Officer

Searching for Coventry University PhD Theses

Electronic theses available in the CU repository can be found using the University Library catalogue Locate. Theses that are print only, including those prior to 2008, can be found using Locate and then requested at the Library Reception Desk.

When theses are submitted, the University's Research Office forwards brief details of the thesis to the British Library Electronic Theses Online Service EThOS.

When searching generally for PhD theses, two useful resources are:

• EThOS - The British Library Electronic Theses Online Service currently has approximately 350,000 records relating to theses awarded by over 120 UK institutions. Around 120,000 of these also provide access to the full text thesis, either via download from the EThOS database or via links to the institution’s own repository. Of the remaining 250,000 records dating back to at least 1800, three quarters are available to be ordered for scanning through the EThOS digitisation-on-demand facility. Please note that some Universities cover the costs of producing a digitisation from a print copy, while others pass the costs on to the requester. To download a thesis or to request a digitisation of a print thesis, you will need to register for an EThOS account - this is free to do.
• DART - DART-Europe is a partnership of research libraries and library consortia who are working together to improve global access to European research theses. DART-Europe is endorsed by LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche), and it is the European Working Group of the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD). DART lists theses from over 566 European universities in over 28 EU countries.

To search for theses from other universities you could also try searching their catalogues directly by going through libraries.org: A directory of libraries throughout the world. If you would like to see a thesis from another university you should consider using the Document Supply Service.

Coventry University Undergraduate and Masters' Dissertations

Unfortunately, only theses from PhD and Masters by Research are collected within Pure and therefore catalogued in Locate. If you are searching for your own Undergraduate or Taught Masters dissertation, we would suggest contacting your original faculty as they may have a copy or be able to direct you to where copies have been stored. Please note that not all faculties will be storing dissertations and that they may not be able to assist you.