Q. How does copyright apply to my thesis?

Ownership

JCU higher degree research (HDR) student authors own the copyright and moral rights over their thesis. Although this may not be the case for theses by publication. 

Your thesis and ResearchOnline@JCU

At JCU, finalised theses are deposited and made open access (providing no embargo has been applied) in ResearchOnline@JCU. This process also grants JCU with a perpetual, non-exclusive licence to store, display or copy any or all of a thesis for use within JCU. Accordingly, any third-party content (e.g., tables, diagrams) in a thesis must be dealt with prior to deposit. This many include:

• providing attributions for content that does not require permission
• checking the potential duration of copyright
• checking that your use is covered by fair dealing exception
• checking that your use is covered by appropriate licences, e.g., creative commons or paid licences
• asking for permission from the content creator or publisher
• completing a Thesis Publications, Copyright and Sensitivity Declaration form

Contact ResearchOnline@JCU if you have any queries or concerns.

Thesis by publication

Thesis by publication involves using journal articles accepted or published during an HDRs candidature as or part of one or more thesis chapters. If including the full text of a journal article, HDRs are advised to use the author accepted manuscript version of the paper.

Attribution

• If you use a small section of your own published paper, reference it as you would any other scholarly work.
• If a chapter is substantially based on one of your published journal articles, this should be made clear for your readers. Full citation details should be included in your thesis preface or at the front of each relevant chapter, and the full citation should be included in the thesis reference list.

Copyright

If your thesis contains your own published papers, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner (usually your publisher) to include that material in your thesis. This should be negotiated when signing author or publishing agreements. If not arranged at the time, retrospective written permission may need to be obtained (depending on publisher policies).

If a chapter is substantially based on a co-authored* publication, permission should also be obtained from your co-authors.

* For inclusion in a thesis, you should be the paper's lead/major or primary contributor.