Electronic Publication
Once accepted, your thesis will be uploaded to the PSU repository, Summit Institutional Repository@PSU, where scholarly and artistic works of the faculty and students are collected. Dissertations included in the repository are accessible only on the Plymouth State campus or to PSU students logging in through their myPlymouth account.
To increase the visibility and impact of your scholarship, you may also choose one or both of the options below:
- Make your dissertation Open Access by granting PSU permission to display your dissertation to the general public in the Summit Institutional Repository. To exercise this option, include a signed copy of the Open Access Permission Form available below. See Open Access FAQs below for more information.
- Submit your dissertation to ProQuest for inclusion in their Dissertations & Theses Global. This will make your dissertation available to anyone affiliated with a library that subscribes to this database (generally only large academic libraries.) To exercise this option, include a signed copy of the ProQuest Thesis/Dissertation Permission Form available below and we will upload your dissertation.
Please note: You may choose to submit one or both of the forms below, but if you do not, your dissertation will not be made available outside of Plymouth State. These forms are optional.
Open Access Publishing
Publishing an openly available copy in the PSU repository is strongly encouraged. Making your work available on an Open Access basis increases the visibility of your work and removes barriers for researchers not affiliated with well-funded libraries. This often results in increased citations to Open Access works.
If you would like to make your thesis or dissertation openly available, please print and sign the permission form above and return it with your submission. This permission form requests a non-exclusive license to publish your work electronically. That means that you retain all of your copyrights and are free to enter into agreements to publish this work or another version of it elsewhere.
In some situations there may be reasons not to make a thesis or dissertation available immediately. Research that includes personal information of research subjects, a patentable discovery, or is undergoing peer review for journal publication may need to be restricted in some way. In these cases either an embargo or partial redaction may be appropriate. More information on these situations as well as restriction options can be found in the FAQs below.
If you have any questions please contact librarian Christin Wixson via phone (603-535-3032) or email (chwixson (at) plymouth (dot) edu).
FAQs
How is this different than the release I sign on the approval page of my thesis or dissertation?
“I understand that my dissertation will become part of the permanent collection of Plymouth State University, Lamson Learning Commons. My signature below authorizes release of my dissertation to any reader upon request.”
The above text, which appears on the approval page, is the permission the library needs in order to make your thesis or dissertation available in print and online within the Plymouth State campus community and outside of it should we receive an interlibrary loan (ILL) request. This signature is required.
The Open Access permission form allows us to grant access to the general public. This is entirely optional; there is no penalty for choosing not to make your work openly available, other than not reaping the benefits described above.
Why might someone want to restrict access to their thesis or dissertation?
The thesis or dissertation contains sensitive information, for example personal details about individuals involved in the research. If applicable, consult the application and approval of the Institutional Review Board for guidance on what limitations are appropriate.
The thesis contains a patentable discovery. To successfully patent an invention, it must not have been previously published or presented.
A journal article based on the thesis or dissertation is currently undergoing or is likely to undergo a peer review process. Open availability of the work would threaten a blind peer review process.
What are the options for restricting access to my thesis or dissertation?
Embargo: A publication delay of usually 6 months to 2 years may be appropriate while journal articles derived from a thesis or dissertation are undergoing the peer review process or when a patent application is pending. Longer embargoes are possible but not encouraged.
Redaction: Removing parts of the thesis or dissertation maybe appropriate in cases where sensitive personal information is involved.
I am planning to submit an article to a journal based on the work described in my thesis or dissertation. Will making my thesis or dissertation openly available interfere with this process?
It is not unusual for an author to derive one or more journal articles from the work of their thesis or dissertation in order to share their discoveries in a more succinct way. You should always be upfront with the journal editor about the relationship between the article and your thesis or dissertation, but generally open access thesis or dissertation publication is not an impediment to journal publication.
Theses/dissertations and journal articles have very different requirements, formats, and audiences. Because significant edits to sections of a thesis or dissertation are likely in order to produce an article, there is generally not a “self-plagiarism” problem with this practice. However, one possible concern is that an open access copy of a dissertation, especially one that shares a title with the article, makes it impossible to guarantee a blind peer review process for the article. If you or your editor have concerns about this, consider placing an embargo on your thesis or dissertation.
Someday I might want to turn my manuscript into a book. Does this count as previous publication?
As most works undergo significant editing and changes in format before becoming a book, most publishers do not consider an open access copy of a thesis or dissertation an impediment to subsequent publication of a book based that thesis or dissertation. (2011 Survey of Publishers)
Ok, I’m in, how do I know when my work is available in the repository or what my permanent URL is?
Authors will receive an email containing their URL when their work become available in the repository. Authors can expect their work to appear in the repository 4-6 weeks after submitting the permission form and digital copy to the library. If you have concerns about the timeline, please contact librarian Alice Pearman via phone (603-535-2226) or online.