30 Embargo
As you finalize your thesis, you may be thinking about using its content for future publications. This could be turning your thesis into a book or submitting a chapter to a scholarly journal. Alternatively, you might already have prior publications in your thesis that fall under certain access restrictions.
Publications aside, there may be patent-related content in the thesis or sensitive or confidential information that you’re not quite ready to release. All of these possibilities raise questions about the impact of having your thesis available online. In some cases, it may make sense to embargo, or delay the release of, your thesis.
While a conversation with your thesis supervisor is the best first step toward understanding whether an embargo is necessary, the information below aims to clarify what it means to have your thesis (ETD) available via open access.
If you do determine an embargo is needed, you may opt for a one- or two-year delay when you register on ProQuest. Please also provide the reason for the request. Although embargo extensions may be requested, an indefinite embargo is not allowed. As a public institution, the University of Iowa is committed to providing access to the theses and dissertations of all graduates through the UI Institutional Repository (Iowa Research Online).
After graduation, if you need to extend an embargo on your thesis, please contact the Graduate College using this form.
Future Publications
If you are looking to turn you thesis into a book, you might be concerned that having your thesis available to the public will hinder future publishing prospects. It may be tempting to assume that the best course of action is to embargo your work for as long as possible.
A high-profile articulation of this concern came with the American Historical Association’s “Statement on Policies Regarding the Option to Embargo Completed History PhD Dissertations.” The statement called on universities to implement six-year embargo periods, claiming that having a thesis available online hinders publishers’ interest and endangers students’ ability to secure a publishing contract.
A number of studies, though, have questioned the assumption underlying the AHA statement: that university presses are unlikely to offer a publishing contract to an author whose thesis is available online. Is it universally true, for example, that presses and publishers are unlikely to be interested in works based on open access ETDs?
The answer is no. For example, a study of social sciences, arts, and humanities journal editors and university press directors found a very small percentage who would not consider a submission based on an open access ETD (about 7% and 3%, respectively) (Ramirez, Marisa L., John T. Dalton, Gail McMillan, Max Read, and Nancy H. Seamans. 2013. “Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities? Findings from a 2011 Survey of Academic Publishers.” College & Research Libraries 74, no. 4: 368-80 https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.75.6.808). Much more commonly, both journal editors and press directors either 1) always welcome open access ETDs for submission, 2) consider ETD submissions on a case-by-case basis, or 3) consider an ETD-based submission if the contents and conclusions are substantially different from the original work.
It is not uncommon, then, for a publisher to accept a submission based—in some form—on an open access ETD. More often than not, that may mean a revised version of the work in your thesis, but that should come as no surprise. A thesis and a book are written in different styles, with different audiences in mind and according to different academic standards. Similarly, a chapter and a journal article undergo different levels of review, with the latter undergoing a peer-review process that may substantially change the original submission. Your thesis may be the substantial basis of future work, but it is rarely accepted for publication in its original form.
Although relatively rare, some presses and publishers may be less likely or unlikely to accept a submission based on an open access ETD. Talk with your thesis supervisor about the norms of your discipline. Double-check journal policies to see how they treat content from an open access ETD.
Prior Publications
In addition to using thesis content as the basis of future publications, some students include prior publications as chapters in their thesis. While most journals allow students to include prior publications in their theses, there may be times when an agreement requires you delay the release of your thesis for a set period of time.
Understanding when an embargo is required can be complicated. A required embargo period can depend on the publisher’s policy, the version of the publication you’ve included in your thesis, and the level of access you’ve published your work under.
For example, Elsevier structures its embargo policies according to whether an author wants to share a preprint, accepted manuscript, or published journal article. To begin, Elsevier allows authors to freely share a preprint, or the author’s work that has not been peer reviewed or had any value added to it by a publisher.
The policy changes, though, for accepted manuscripts, which have been accepted for publication and typically include changes suggested during the submission, the peer review process, and editor-author communications. While an accepted manuscript can be shared for internal institutional use, it must be held for a specific embargo period before being released to the public. This embargo period, determined at the journal level, assures the journal has time to publish the article before it’s released elsewhere.
And finally, a published journal article may be included in a thesis or dissertation, regardless of whether the article is available by subscription or open access.
Please check the publication policies of the journal where you’ve published to determine how embargo policies might have an impact on your thesis. A good place to start is the MIT Libraries site on Thesis Content and Article Publishing.
Open policy finder provides a journal specific search about options for sharing preprints, accepted manuscripts, or the final, version of record.
Patents and Confidential or Sensitive Information
Occasionally, a student’s thesis will include information related to a patent application. If you have patent-related information in your thesis, it is important to place the thesis under embargo.
For a patent application to be accepted, the applicant must show that the invention is new, something previously unknown. This means the idea cannot have been published, sold, or used prior to the date of application. While the United States has a twelve-month grade period following publication, there is no such grace period internationally. International patent applications must be completed prior to publication of the idea.
To ensure that your ideas are not made available, either through the written content of your thesis or through text included in you Abstract, the Graduate College will hold your thesis in an internal database until your embargo period expires. For that reason it is important to designate “Patent” as the reason for requesting the embargo in ProQuest.
Even if you are not planning to apply for a patent, your thesis may include confidential or sensitive information about people or technologies that you may wish to withhold from public access. If that is the case, opt for an embargo.
