Open Access: Theses as a Collection of Papers: Copyright

In some cases UCD allows PhD students to submit their thesis as a collection of previously published papers. This is known as "Thesis as a Collection of Papers," a "Cumulative Thesis," or a "Thesis by Publication." University guidelines on how this should be approached are available here. 

Publishing agreements may involve copyright transfer or exclusive licence to publish. These terms determine how you and others can reuse and share your publications.

Publishers usually permit either the author's final version of the paper (Author’s Accepted Manuscript, AAM) or the published version, to be included in your thesis. The AAM has been peer-reviewed and revised into its final form by you. It does not contain the publisher's formatting or logo as in the final published version.

It is essential that you have permission to share all published papers in your thesis freely online, prior to thesis submission. This is because UCD makes all PhD theses available via Research Repository UCD.

Permission before article publication

Before submitting your article for publication, you can check the “Information for Authors" section on the publishers' website. Publishers may have a policy to allow authors include published papers as part of their PhD thesis. They may say something like “Authors can include their articles in full or in part in a thesis or dissertation for non-commercial purposes.” 

If this is not clear, contact the publisher or editor of the journal to discuss inclusion of the published paper in your PhD thesis.

Rights Retention

Plan S, a coalition of funders have developed a "Rights Retention Strategy." Your research may be funded by one of these organisations. The aim of the strategy is to ensure authors retain the copyright of their own work, and are allowed to make at least the AAM available via Open Access immediately on publication, with a CC-BY license.

If your funder requires plan S compliance, the "pre-submission letter" and the "submission cover letter" templates are available to use (see below). These can be sent to the publisher prior to submitting your work and when submitting it. More details of Plan S and rights retention are available here.

Permission after article publication

For previously published papers, look at the copyright transfer agreements under “Rights Retention.” You may also need to check the publishers' website to see if re-use is permitted. Do this for each paper.

In cases where this information is not available, contact the publisher or editor directly to get permission. Many publishers allow you to use the Rightslink service to get permission. Alternatively use the copyright request template below.

Note: if you are having any difficulties gaining permission, ensure you alert the Graduate Research Board as soon as possible.

Embargos

A publisher may only allow you to include the paper with an embargo period. This means there will be a set period, after which the material can be made freely available online. An embargo can be set up by applying to the Graduate Research Board (GRB). Full details are available here.

After thesis submission, only the title, author, and basic details of your thesis will appear in the repository until the embargo expires. After this, the full text of your thesis will be available.

University College London (2024) Guidance on incorporating published work in your thesis. Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/doctoral-school/rights-and-responsibilities/research-integrity-and-ethics/guidance-incorporating-published-work-your.
University of Limerick (2024) Thesis Preparation: Copyright. Available at: https://libguides.ul.ie/c.php?g=681741&p=4918262.
University of Strathclyde (2024) Copyright & Your Thesis: Using Your Own Published Work in Your Thesis. Available at: https://guides.lib.strath.ac.uk/c.php?g=677408&p=4827028.