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A type of use describes what you may wish to do with copyrighted content and what the publisher permits. Elsevier offers the following types of use either directly through RightsLink or after approval by Elsevier. RightsLink can process your permission requests to reuse Elsevier content in:

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Book/Textbook : A book / textbook license authorizes you to reproduce the content in a book or textbook. Permission is limited to the edition specified during the ordering process and as specified in the license.

CD-ROM/DVD/Other Storage Media : A CD-ROM/DVD/other storage media license authorizes you to reproduce the content in a CD-ROM, DVD or other storage media provided the finished work is not accessible online or through any other means of multi-point distribution. A CD-ROM is defined is a compact disc capable of storing computer data. A DVD is defined as an optical disc containing multimedia and/or computer data. Other storage media is defined as a device for storing information/data such as a USD/Memory card.

Training/CME Materials : A training or continuing medical education (CME) materials license authorizes you to reproduce the content in the course, seminar, conference, or meeting indicated in your licensing request through RightsLink. Access to reprinted, the content must be restricted to attendees of your event only. If you are using the content in an electronic format, you must include the following notice either adjacent to the content or in the terms and conditions for use of your electronic products: "Readers may view, browse, and/or download material for temporary copying purposes only, provided these uses are for noncommercial personal purposes. Except as provided by law, this material may not be further reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, adapted, performed, displayed, published, or sold in whole or in part, without prior written permission from the publisher."

Note: If you are an academic institution not receiving any sponsorship or education grants from any commercial companies please select "Reuse in a coursepack/classroom materials".

Conference Proceedings : A conference proceedings license authorizes you to reproduce the content in a conference proceeding. A conference proceeding is defined as a record of the papers presented at a conference, symposium, workshop, or meeting.

Coursepack/Classroom Materials : A coursepack license authorizes a non-profit, academic institution to reproduce the publisher's content as part of a coursepack. Coursepacks are booklets, print or electronic, of related articles prepared as supplemental materials for a course of study at a school or university.

Dissertation/Thesis : A dissertation/thesis license authorizes an advanced degree candidate to reproduce the content, requested in his/her doctoral thesis or dissertation. If your license is for use in a thesis or dissertation, your thesis may be submitted to your institution in either print or electronic format. If your thesis, or dissertation, is to be published commercially, then you must reapply for permission. If you are an author of the article/chapter please refer to your author publishing agreement for an explanation of your retained author rights.

Government Report : A government report license authorizes you to reproduce the content in a government report. A government report is a document prepared by a valid government entity at the end of the government fiscal year highlighting the year's events, summarizing operations, reporting the financial results for the year, and commenting on the government sector's outlook for the future.

Journal/Magazine : A journal/magazine license authorizes you to reproduce the content in a journal or magazine. Rights to reuse the content are granted only for the single issue (print and/or online) requested and these rights do not extend to subsequent use in print, online, on CD-ROM/DVDs, or in any other format, unless requested during the ordering process and specified in the license.

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Make Photocopies : A photocopy license authorizes you to photocopy the content according to the terms of the license granted. A request for permission does not include content delivery. If you do not have a copy of the article, or chapter you are using, you may obtain a copy directly from Elsevier online. Please be advised that obtaining the content you license is a separate transaction.

Presentation / Slide Kit / Poster : A presentation / slide kit / poster license authorizes you to reproduce the content in a presentation (including slide kit and/or transparencies), OR in a poster according to your selection during the order process. The fee reflected is a one-time fee for the presentation specified during ordering. Publication of the proceedings of a meeting is considered a separate use and additional permission must be obtained for this use.

Promotional Materials/Pamphlet /Brochure : A promotional materials / pamphlet / brochure license authorizes you to reproduce the content in promotional materials, a pamphlet or a brochure — including short printed works and independent publications consisting of several pages of printed matter. Permission is limited to the languages, format and circulation provided during the order process and as specified on the license.

Broadcast Media : Reuse of the content in media types such as TV programme, documentary, movie, and others not listed with RightsLink require the approval of an Elsevier representative. Contact Elsevier directly to make your request, or when prompted by RightsLink, enter your order request automatically. Contact Elsevier .

Website: A website license authorizes you to display the content on your company website (e.g. company intranet, charity web site, educational web site, corporate web site, personal web site). Note: This license does not cover material to be stored in a central repository. If you are seeking such a license, you must contact publisher directly.

You must give complete credit to the original source in connection with any reproduction or adaptation of the licensed material:

“Reprinted from Publication title, Vol / edition number, Author(s), Title of article / title of chapter, Pages No., Copyright (Year), with permission from Elsevier [OR APPLICABLE SOCIETY COPYRIGHT OWNER].”

Also Lancet special credit - “Reprinted from The Lancet, Vol. number, Author(s), Title of article, Pages No., Copyright (Year), with permission from Elsevier.”

Format reflects the means of reproduction of Elsevier content.

Print : If the reproduction will be print (paper), select Print from the Format drop-down menu. Print-only types of use -- such as photocopy -- will display Print in the Format menu with no option to license Electronic rights.

Electronic : If the reproduction will be electronic, select Electronic from the Format drop-down menu. Electronic-only types of use -- such as CD-ROM/DVD and website -- will display Electronic in the Format menu with no option to license Print rights.

Both Print and Electronic : To reuse the content in both formats, select Print and Electronic from the Format drop-down menu.

Unless specifically granted in the license, the license does not allow the use of the material in any other edition or by any additional means of reproduction including (by way of example) motion pictures, sound tapes, and phonograph records; nor does the license cover book clubs, abridgements, journal cover image, or selections which may be made of the publication except as specified in the license.

Portion describes which element of Elsevier content you wish to reuse. Portions offered in the drop-down menu include:

Full chapter/article : The full text of the chapter or article, including figures, tables, and illustrations. (In most cases, full chapter/article reuses require the approval of an Elsevier representative. Place your order request via RightsLink. An Elsevier representative will e-mail you with an approval or deny within 15 business days. No charge will be incurred by you for this approval process.)

Abstract : The Elsevier-prepared content summary.

Excerpt : An excerpt is less than 500 words of content from a single full article or chapter, not including figures, tables, and illustrations on the page(s), if any. You may reuse multiple excerpts.

Figure/Table/Illustration : A figure, table, or illustration from an article or chapter or any combination thereof. Requests to reuse large quantities of figures, tables, and/or illustrations require the approval of an Elsevier representative.

Copyright Concerns of Graduate Researchers

Incorporating copyrighted content in theses/dissertations.

You should assume that anything produced by someone other than yourself is protected by copyright unless you determine otherwise (e.g. determine that the term of copyright protection has expired and the work is in the public domain). The types of works protected by copyright include books, articles, newspapers, photographs, music, movies, software, and even things you find on the internet.

Use of works protected by copyright in your dissertation or thesis will need either permission or a fair use justification. Fair use is an exception to the copyright holder’s exclusive rights. In order to use copyrighted works under a claim of fair use, the following factors must be weighed: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Fair use provides an indispensable opportunity for scholarship, since so much of research involves building upon the insights of others. Quotations from other writers are a regular part of most scholarship and are generally consider a classic example of fair use. There is no exact rule about how much one may quote and remain within the boundaries of fair use. Various guidelines that offer specific numbers of words or lines are advisory and do not have the force of law . In general, quotations from the work of others should be no longer than is necessary to support the scholarly point you wish to make. When you are subjecting the quoted material to scholarly criticism or comment, you have more leeway for fair use than in many other situations, but you should be sure that you do not use more of someone else’s work than is necessary for the argument that you are making in your own thesis/dissertation.

In the case of images, you should be sure that the pictures you reproduce are closely tied to your research goals and are each made the subject of specific scholarly comment. If you use a large number of copyright-protected images by a single artist, or in some other way threaten to supersede the market for the original works, it is wise to seek permission. If you have flexibility in the final selection of your images, search for images that are 1) in the public domain, or 2) made available for reuse via a Creative Commons license. Such images can be incorporated into your dissertation without permission or concern for fair use.

Finally, remember to always provide proper attribution to the sources of the works you incorporate into your thesis or dissertation. Proper attribution is absolutely required; that’s a part of academic integrity and good scholarship. Copyright permission, if necessary, is an entirely separate matter and does not obviate the need for attribution.

Additional Resources : Copyright information for theses and dissertations from the Duke Graduate School Copyright information for theses and dissertations from ProQuest Understanding and Negotiating Book Publication Contracts from the Authors Alliance Columbia University Advisory Office – “ Permissions “ ProQuest/Kenny Crews – “ Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis: Ownership, Fair Use, and Your Rights and Responsibilities “ University of Michigan – “ A Graduate Student’s Guide to Copyright: Open Access, Fair Use, and Permissions “

From Dissertation to Publication – FAQ on Your Rights as Author

Who owns the copyright of a thesis or dissertation?

You do! The copyright of a thesis or dissertation belongs to you as the author. Under the U.S. Copyright Act, works are automatically copyrighted at the moment they are fixed in a tangible form, including residing on your computer’s hard drive. You continue to own that copyright until you transfer it to another party. A transfer of copyright must be in writing. If parts of a work have already been published and copyright in those other works was transferred to someone else (e.g. a publisher), copyright of those parts remains with whom it was transferred to.

Who owns copyright in work produced as part of a team or in a lab?

Whenever a group undertakes a project or research, it is best to have a discussion up front, including the faculty advisor or chair, to clarify how copyright, patents and other intellectual property will be managed and who will retain and manage rights for all portions of the project. Be sure to consider not only publications arising from the project, but also data sets, software, websites, user interfaces, specifications, and any other outputs. It is always best to make sure that faculty make clear to graduate students and others working for them how research outputs will be owned or used in order to avoid confusion. In circumstances where grant funds or University funding is significantly invested in the project or research, other ownership interests may be at play, which should be discussed and understood.

Do I need to register my copyright?

You do not need to register with the Copyright Office in order to enjoy copyright protection. Such protection is automatic, coming into effect at the moment a work is fixed in a tangible form. However, registration has certain advantages. First, if your work is registered you have strong evidence that you are the author of the work and the owner of its copyright. Also, registration is necessary to enforce a copyright against an infringer or plagiarist. For full detail, read the U.S. Copyright Office circular “ Copyright Basics “. The benefits of registration are outlined on Page 7.

Registration can be completed online directly (for a fee of $35) through the Copyright Office website or through ProQuest (for a fee of $55) who will register the copyright for you and in your name.

Can I use previously published articles of my own in my work?

It depends. You will need to review the agreement you signed with the publisher of our previously published article. Most agreements require you to transfer your copyright to the publisher. If this is the case, you must request permission from the publisher to “reprint” the article as a chapter in your dissertation. However, some agreements specify that you retain the right to reprint the article in your dissertation. The chart below details several publishers’ policies with respect to reusing your own previously published work in a thesis or dissertation; however, you should always review the terms of any agreement you signed.

What is open access, and how does it apply to my thesis or dissertation?

Articles, books, theses and dissertations are said to be “open access” when they are “digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.” By making publications open access, the widest sharing of ideas and research results is made possible, which is generally done either by publishing in open access journals or depositing them in open access repositories such as PubMed Central, arXiv, or DukeSpace . Duke graduate school policy is for all new dissertations to be available open access through DukeSpace, either immediately or after an embargo period. More information about how to deposit can be found on the Duke ScholarWorks and Graduate School sites.

Will journal or book publishers consider publishing my work if it is based on an open access thesis or dissertation?

Recent surveys show that a majority of journal editors and university presses would accept submissions of articles and book manuscripts that were based upon theses or dissertations, even if they are available in an open access repository. This is in part because most publishers consider theses and dissertations to be “student work” that will require substantial editing and revision before being published in article or book form. The chart below summarizes the policies of some publishers regarding the publication of new works from a thesis or dissertation.

Publisher Policies on Reuse of Articles in Dissertations and Publication of Content within Dissertations

The table below summarizes selected publisher policies on student reuse of their own previously published works as well as the policies on publishing portions of a thesis or dissertation as an article. It was developed by University of Florida Libraries based on their research and correspondence with various publishers.

Content on this page was adapted from the University of Florida Libraries and re-used here under the CC-BY-NC-SA license asserted on that page.

Copyright and Your Thesis or Dissertation

Introduction
Applying the workflow
Step 1: Do you need permission?
Step 2: Seek permission if needed
Step 3: Non-copyright concerns
Step 4: Publication Issues

Research & Instruction Librarians

I'm citing my sources, so I don't need permission to include excerpts from them, right?

Attribution is separate from permission . You of course need to cite your sources, but this is separate from the question of whether you need a rights holder's permission to include excerpts from or copies of those sources to begin with.

As a copyright holder, the author has exclusive rights to (among other things) reproducing the work. If you want to reproduce still-in-copyright work in your dissertation, you'll need to decide whether it's fair use or get the copyright holder's permission.

Is it in the public domain if I find it online?

Publication online implies nothing about whether the work is in the public domain. Content that appears online--and thus is publicly accessible--may very well be copyrighted, and thus you must comply with copyright law when using it. "Public domain" instead refers specifically to work that no longer is entitled to copyright protection (i.e. the copyright protection expired), or works for which copyright protection was never available (e.g. U.S. Federal Government works, facts/ideas, etc.).

Do I need permission to link to content rathe r than include it?

No! It is not an infringement to link to content that has been uploaded lawfully. If, however, you have reason to believe that the content you're linking to was uploaded in violation of copyright, then you should not link to it. Doing so could be construed as contributory infringement. In those circumstances, work through the Step 1 questions with respect to use of legitimate copies of the content, rather than linking to infringing online reproductions.

I was the author of the work I want to use, so do I still need permission?

Maybe. If the work that you want to use is something you previously wrote, you may no longer hold copyright over it if you assigned copyright to a publisher --making it important to go through Step 1 questions. Additionally, if you were the co-author of a work, you may need to ask permission from the other authors.

Am I allowed to make multiple books/articles out of my dissertation?

As copyright holder of your scholarship, you're entitled to make derivative works and adapt or rearrange your work as you see fit. Though, a journal may want you to edit your work a bit to make it something different for the journal iteration. Every version or adaptation of your work is a separate work in which you hold copyright.

Keep in mind, though: If you publish journal articles that are merely excerpted from your digital project without modification, you should be careful about assigning copyright to the journals. If you later wish to reuse the same language in, say, a manuscript for a book, you don't want to have transferred your rights to that iteration.

If it was fair use to publish a work in my dissertation, is it fair use to publish it in my first book?

Not necessarily.

For instance, one of the fair use factors takes into consideration whether your use is for non-profit educational purposes. Once you begin publishing a book and earning royalties, the commercial nature of the endeavor may weigh against fair use for that factor. You'll need to undertake Step 1 analysis again in its entirety when it comes time to publish your manuscript commercially, and determine whether you need permissions.

Keep in mind, too, that your publisher may--as a matter of policy, to protect itself--want you to obtain permissions irrespective of whether you believe use would have been fair without permission.

Are unpublished archival materials protected by copyright?

If they contained authored, original expressions, they were, and maybe still are, protected by copyright. But like any other copyrighted work, they may have entered the public domain.

Unpublished works subject to copyright protection. However, the duration of copyright for unpublished works can differ based on whether they are signed, anonymous, etc. For more on copyright length for unpublished works, consult the discussion of Unpublished Works (Ch. 3.2.1) in Peter Hirtle's Copyright & Cultural Institutions book; see also 17 USC §§ 302 , and 303 .

Keep in mind, too, that while unpublished works are not excluded from your use as fair use, what constitutes fair use of unpublished works may construed more narrowly by a court.

Are unpublished foreign works protected by copyright?

They were at some point. Whether they still are depends.

The length of protection in the U.S. for unpublished material is the same regardless of where the work was created, or what nationality the author was ( 17 USC § 104 ). If the copyright term for the unpublished work has expired, it's in the public domain for purposes of publishing your dissertation in the U.S.

How long are published foreign works protected by copyright?

If you're looking to use foreign works in your dissertation being published in the U.S., the general rule of thumb is that anything first published in a foreign country prior to 1923 has entered the public domain, and most everything else published abroad since then remains protected by copyright.

The more complex answer is that, for foreign works: Based on the nationality of the author and place of publication, one can calculate whether the foreign material has entered the public domain. Though, you don't have to--you can use the wonderful Cornell University Public Domain chart prepared by Peter Hirtle. Check out the section "Works First Published Outside the U.S. by Foreign Nationals or U.S. Citizens Living Abroad."

I'm having trouble making a fair use decision. Can you help?

Ultimately, the determination of whether something is fair use must be made by you, rather than the Library. But if you are an NJIT graduate student, we are here to help talk through how fair use works, and answer questions about resources as you work through the four factors.

Will publishing my dissertation open access immediately, with no embargo, affect my ability to publish other works based on it?

Certain publishers in particular disciplines may consider dissertations to be prior publications, and/or limit their consideration of a subsequent journal article or book manuscript based on the dissertation. Some authors may therefore wish to embargo due to concern that open access availability will impact consideration of subsequent publications derived from their dissertations.

Note that this is untrue for the majority of publishers.

To the contrary, academic publishers typically view prior open access publication as a means to improve acceptance for a book deal due to increased awareness of your work.
While numbers vary significantly by discipline, a 2013 study on electronic theses and dissertations indicates that more than 90% of university presses will consider an open access dissertation for book publication. See also a similar 2011 survey .
Ke ep in mind, too, that your dissertation will be revised and rewritten significantly if/when you shape it into a manuscript for a first book. Most publishers accordingly view this as entirely new work.
If you are instead concerned about acceptance for future journal articles rather than books, take a look at the guidelines for the particular journals in which you're interested. For instance, Springer and Elsevier --which do not count theses as prior publications.

Ultimately, y ou should check with your advisors and the guidelines of the publishers you are considering. It is important to familiarize yourself with the policies in your field.

<< Previous: Step 4: Publication Issues
Last Updated: Feb 27, 2024 12:58 PM
URL: https://researchguides.njit.edu/copyright_dissertation

Search form

You are here, obtaining copyright permission.

The information on this site and from the Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing at the University Library System is not legal advice and is provided for informational purposes only. The Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing is not counsel to any members of the Pitt community.

image from Journal of Pragmatics indicating the Get Rights and Content link

Clicking this link will take you to a Copyright Clearance Center page where you can input some basic information. This form will generate a price for your re-use and a license statement that you can print out or save for your records. For a full illustration, watch the video below.

Elsevier, Sage, and Wolters Kluwer (including Lippincot Williams & Wilkins), Taylor & Francis :

If you are the author of an article published by Elsevier or Sage you may not be able to use the Copyright Clearance Center to obtain the necessary permissions. These publishers will only grant you permission to re-use your content non-commercially and the University of Pittsburgh requires you to deposit your ETD with ProQuest Dissertation and Theses. You will need to use the Elsevier Permissions Request Form or the Sage Permissions Portal in order obtain the necessary permissions. For Wolters Kluwer please email them at [email protected] or the contact listed for the individual publication

You will want to include the following language along with your permissions request:

D-scholarship@Pitt is the institutional repository for the University of Pittsburgh, and the repository of record for University of Pittsburgh ETDs. Pitt relies on ProQuest for preservation of theses and dissertations. They steward multiple redundant electronic copies of each document.

Elsevier's form is now limited to 300 characters please consider using the following shorter language:

D-scholarship@Pitt is the institutional repository for the University of Pittsburgh. Pitt relies on ProQuest for preservation of theses and dissertations. They steward multiple redundant electronic copies of each document.

If you can't find a form and need to send an e-mail or make a phone call, feel free to use our permissions templates below.

Introduction / start of the call.
"Hello, my name is [...] and I am a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh working on my dissertation. I am calling today to inquire about permissions to reproduce materials in one of your articles for my dissertation, which will be published and distributed by ProQuest."
Give them the information needed.

Hopefully the person will tell you what information they need, and you can read that information from your citation.

Alternatively, they may direct you to a website or offer to send you an e-mail with permissions information.

If they do this, ask for THEIR e-mail address so that you can look for their e-mail soon and follow up if you have any questions.

Ask how much it will cost to re-use this material.
"Just one more question, will there be any cost for granting this permission?"
It should be free. If they try to charge you for it, use these responses:
"I apologize, but can I clarify that this will be used in a dissertation and I will not profit from this in any way. Is there any way to reduce that charge?"
"I am a graduate student with no external funding for this work, and will not profit from this venture. Is there any way that you can grant me permission without a fee?"
If they insist, say "Please go ahead and send me the information by e-mail [give your e-mail address if necessary], and let me consult with my advisor about my options." Then contact us for help and alternative options.
"Hello, my name is [...] and I am a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh working on my thesis. I am calling today to inquire about permissions to reproduce materials in one of your articles for my dissertation, which will be made available online as part of our electronic thesis and dissertation program."
"I apologize, but can I clarify that this will be used in a [thesis / dissertation] and I will not profit from this in any way. Is there any way to reduce that charge?"

MIT Libraries logo MIT Libraries

Scholarly Communications - MIT Libraries

Thesis content and article publishing

Journal publishers usually acquire the copyright to scholarly articles through a publication agreement with the author. Their policies then determine what authors can do with their work.

Below are publisher policies regarding graduate students’ reuse of their previously published articles in their theses, and policies on accepting journal submissions that first appeared in an author’s previously released thesis.

If an article is co-authored with a member of the MIT faculty, or if you have opted-in to an OA license , the MIT open access policy is likely to apply to the article, which allows for the extension of additional rights to graduate student authors through MIT for reuse. Short excerpts of published works may also be available for reuse under the MIT Libraries license agreements .

See this page for information about who owns the copyright to your thesis (generally, it’s either MIT or you).

Please contact [email protected] with questions or if you need information that does not yet appear below.

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Reuse of author’s previously published article in author’s thesis

Check the terms of your publication agreement .

Submission of new article by author that first appeared as part of author’s thesis

Allows : “ We do not regard dissertations/theses as prior publications.”

American Chemical Society

Allows : “Authors may reuse all or part of the Submitted, Accepted or Published Work in a thesis or dissertation that the author writes and is required to submit to satisfy the criteria of degree-granting institutions…. Appropriate citation of the Published Work must be made as follows “Reprinted with permission from [COMPLETE REFERENCE CITATION]. Copyright [YEAR] American Chemical Society.”

“If the thesis or dissertation to be published is in electronic format, a direct link to the Published Work must be included using the ACS Articles on Request link.”

American Geophysical Union

Allows : “If you wish to reuse your own article (or an amended version of it) in a new publication of which you are the author, editor or co-editor, prior permission is not required (with the usual acknowledgements). However, a formal grant of license can be downloaded free of charge from RightsLink by selecting “Author of this Wiley article” as your requestor type.”

Allows : “Previously published explicitly does not include oral or poster presentations, meeting abstracts or student theses/dissertations.”

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Allows : “ Upon publication of an article or paper in an AIAA journal or conference proceeding, authors can use in their own theses/dissertations (with permission of AIAA if required by copyright).”

From here : “In most cases when AIAA is the copyright holder of a work, authors will be automatically granted permission by AIAA to reprint their own material in subsequent works, to include figures, tables, and verbatim portions of text, upon request. Explicit permission should be sought from AIAA through Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) ; all reprinted material must be acknowledged and the original source cited in full.”

American Institute of Physics

Allows : “A uthors do not need permission from AIP Publishing to reuse your own AIP Publishing article in your thesis or dissertation (please format your credit line: “Reproduced from [FULL CITATION], with the permission of AIP Publishing”)” Author agreement says the version of record can be used .

Allows : Publishing the work in a thesis is not considered prior publication according to author warranties in the publication agreement.

American Physical Society

Allows , “ provided the bibliographic citation and the APS copyright credit line are given on the appropriate pages.”

Allows Language from Physical Review journals page: “Publication of material in a master’s or doctoral thesis does not preclude publication of that material in the Physical Review journals.”

American Society for Clinical Investigation

After Jan 4, 2022 : “Effective with the January 4, 2022 issue of JCI, authors retain copyright on all articles, which are published with a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0).”

Prior to Jan 4, 2022 : “ Permission can be obtained via Copyright Clearance Center . Copyright or license information is noted on each article.”

Likely allows : D oesn’t explicitly call out theses but says posting on preprints isn’t prior publication.

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

Allows : “Authors can include partial or complete papers of their own (and no fee is expected) in a dissertation as long as citations and DOI pointers to the Versions of Record in the ACM Digital Library are included. Authors can use any portion of their own work in presentations and in the classroom (and no fee is expected).”

Likely allows . Prior publication rules apply to “peer reviewed” publications.

Cambridge University Press

Allows : “Permissions requests are waived if t he author of the work wishes to reproduce a single chapter (not exceeding 20 per cent of their work), journal article or shorter extract in a subsequent work (i.e. with a later publication date) of which he or she is to be the author, co-author or editor.”

Policies set by individual journals.

Allows : “ Use and share their works for scholarly purposes (with full acknowledgement of the original article): Include in a thesis or dissertation (provided this is not published commercially).”

Allows : “ Elsevier does not count publication of an academic thesis as prior publication.”

Emerald Publishing

Allows . Authors should use the submitted version or accepted manuscript version. Use of the final published version is permitted in print, but not electronic versions of theses.

Allows : “We are happy for submissions to Emerald to include work that has previously formed part of your PhD or other academic thesis. Please submit your paper in the usual way but declare the existence of the uploaded thesis to the Editor of the journal. If the Editor wished to consider the paper further, the paper would go through our standard anonymised peer-review process.”

Allows , with some requirements

Theses not specifically addressed , but permitted subject to editorial discretion. Individual journals may have their own policies.

Institute of Physics

Allows. A uthor may use the final published version or figures/text, and should include citation and a link to the version of record. “When you transfer the copyright in your article to IOP, we grant back to you certain rights, including the right to include all or part of the Final Published Version of the article within any thesis or dissertation.”

Inter-Research Science Center

Reuse of published content is “generally free of charge,” but you must get permission. Email: [email protected]

Not addressed , except to say, “ Permission to re-use any previously published material must have been obtained by the authors from the copyright holders.”

International Speech Communication Association (ISCA) INTERSPEECH conference

Allows , with citation. “ISCA grants each author permission to use the article in that author’s dissertation….”

Mathematical Sciences Publishers

Allows , with citation. “The Author may use part or all of this Work or its image in any future works of his/her/their own.”

Unclear, but the author agreement says , “The Author warrants that the Work has not been published before, in any form except as a preprint.” We suggest asking your editor.

National Academy of Sciences

Allows , with citation. “ PNAS authors do not need to obtain permission in the following cases: …to include their articles as part of their dissertations.”

Not addressed . “ What constitutes prior publication…will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Allows , with citation. “ Authors have the right to reuse their article’s Version of Record, in whole or in part, in their own thesis.”

Allows . “ Nature Portfolio will consider submissions containing material that has previously formed part of a PhD or other academic thesis which has been published according to the requirements of the institution awarding the qualification.”

Oxford University Press

Journals have their own policies . OUP uses the Copyright Clearance Center for permissions . Contact your editor.

Royal Society of Chemistry

Allows , but says, “ Excerpts or material from your dissertation that have not been through peer review will generally be eligible for publication. However, if the excerpt from the dissertation included in your manuscript is the same or substantially the same as any previously published work, the editor may determine that it is not suitable for publication in the journal.”

Allows — in addition, a special agreement with Springer for MIT authors allows for reuse for scholarly and educational purposes.

Policy varies by journal but according to Springer: “There are no overriding ethical issues as long as the dual publication is transparent and cross referenced. Transparency is key, though a few journals might reject such an article for the reason of non-originality.”

Taylor & Francis

Allows — authors retain the right to “Include your article Author’s Original Manuscript (AOM) or Accepted Manuscript(AM), depending on the embargo period, in your thesis or dissertation. The Version of Record cannot be used.”

Allows : “ Y ou may share any version of your article with individual colleagues and students… as submission of thesis, or doctorate.”

Allows : “ The following types of “prior publication” do not present cause for concerns about duplicate or redundant publication: Dissertations and theses in university archives.”

Page last updated: February 8, 2024

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