Does your dissertation contain previously copyrighted material by other individuals or entities? If so, have you attached permission letters for its use, or moved the copyrighted material to an appendix and provided electronic copies of the appendix to the UR Graduate Studies Office?
Other Dissertation Resources
Explore Dissertation Resources
While writing and finalizing your dissertation, you may have questions or need additional guidance. In addition to our dissertation manual, we have complied some common questions and resources to help you.
National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD) Resources
As part of University鈥檚 continued mission to learn, discover, heal, create鈥攁nd make the world聽Ever Better鈥攖he Office of Equity and Inclusion聽has recently obtained a聽University-wide institutional membership to the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity听(NCFDD).
Through this membership, postdocs and graduate students will have access to critical tools for their scholarship and for cultivating an equitable, respectful, and welcoming culture at Rochester. The NCFDD is an independent professional development and mentoring community with members from over 450 colleges and universities.
To claim your membership, to register.
Among a series of professional development resources, there is a 12 week dissertation curriculum that has proven to be very helpful when completed in the year leading to your defense.
Copyright
Copyright is a set of legal rights provided to creators of original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium. It gives copyright owners the exclusive right to copy, distribute, perform, adapt and display their works.
Discussion of copyright on this website is not meant to substitute for the legal advice of qualified attorneys. A more detailed discussion of copyright law can be found in the publication from ProQuest entitled 聽by Kenneth D. Crews.
Most people will register the copyright for their dissertation, either working through the paperwork themselves or working with ProQuest to file on their behalf. Registration is inexpensive and provides additional legal remedies if someone infringes on your work.
Additional Information on this topic can be found at the following links:
Obtaining Permission for Copyrighted Material(s)
If you use work created by others in your dissertation/thesis, you need to check the copyright status of those materials and, if necessary, request permission from the copyright owner to re-use them. This would apply to content you took articles, books, web pages, music, poetry and lyrics, sound recordings, etc. The owner of the copyrighted material may be the author or the publisher. Many academic authors, for example, transfer their copyright to publishers when they publish a book or an article.
Written permission from the copyright owner is generally required to use materials under copyright (not in the Public Domain), and whose use does not fall under a Fair Use exception (). Re-using materials from Open Access publications may or may not require or not permission depending on the Creative Commons license assigned to the publication, and the intended use, and whether or not modifications have been made to the materials ().聽 In addition, if you signed over copyright for papers you鈥檝e authored to the publisher, you may need written permission to include your own papers in your dissertation. Check your publishing contact, though; your publisher may have let you reserve the right to re-use your work in future publications.聽 ProQuest also requires you to submit permission letters allowing distribution of third party copyrighted materials
To request permission to use copyrighted works of others, check the publisher鈥檚 website to find information about their 鈥淐opyright Policies鈥� or 鈥淩ights and Permissions鈥�. Most academic publishers have agreements with the to process those type of requests; it is common to see a link saying 鈥淕et permissions鈥� somewhere on the online book/article/journal or publisher website. Re-use of materials that you authored on your own thesis is usually free of charge.
If there is no easy link to request permissions on the publisher鈥檚 website, you may have to contact them directly. Here is an example of the type of information you should include in your聽. Remember to keep all the documentation for your records since you may have to share those permissions when submitting your thesis to UR Research and ProQuest.
Still unsure or need more information? Check the following聽聽or set up an appointment with the Scholarly Communications Librarian, Moriana Garcia聽mgarcia@library.rochester.edu
If you are not able to obtain written permission to include copyrighted materials in your dissertation, and does not apply, the materials should be removed from the dissertation, placed in an appendix that will be restricted from public view, and provided to the UR Graduate Education Office.
If transmission through email/PDF is not possible, please聽email to discuss means of transmission to the office.
Removal of Proprietary and Confidential Information
人妻少妇专区 Medical Center authors are expected to conform to the聽聽 and use their knowledge and skills to advance human welfare and discourage the misuse of scientific information.
If there is proprietary or confidential information in your dissertation, such as industry trade secrets or studies using a reagent obtained under the聽Material Transfer Agreement听(MTA- Powerpoint) with restrictions on publishing, the information should be removed from the dissertation, placed in an appendix that will be restricted from public view, and provided to the UR Graduate Studies Office on a CD or flash drive. Text should be in PDF format.
The 人妻少妇专区 Intellectual Property Policy can be found here.
Important Questions to Answer as your Dissertation Develops
Additional information about these issues can be obtained from the
Have you and your faculty advisor reviewed your dissertation for information that could lead to a commercially viable invention or other intellectual property and filed an Invention Disclosure Form with the Office of Technology Transfer聽if appropriate?
If you plan to publish chapters or data in the future, have you chosen to restrict access to your dissertation for up to two years after the date your degree is awarded by the Trustees?