The Graduate College requires that every doctoral dissertation and abstract be published, in order to best disseminate and archive the significant work of University of Illinois graduates. Submitting a completed ProQuest/UMI Publishing Agreement fulfills this requirement. ProQuest will then make arrangements to publish your abstract in Dissertation Abstracts International, create a negative microform copy of your dissertation for archival purposes, and sends a microfilm copy of your document to the University Library. ProQuest also maintains a digital copy of your dissertation, as an official off-site repository of the Library of Congress.
The agreement permits ProQuest to make copies of your thesis available to the public. Please note, however, that ProQuest holds no copyrights to your dissertation. Although ProQuest acts as a publisher, you do not give ProQuest the copyright when you sign the agreement. The contract gives ProQuest only non-exclusive reproduction, sales, and distribution rights.As the author, you retain control of the work’s intellectual content. The ProQuest/UMI Publishing Agreement is an agreement made between the student and ProQuest; the Thesis Office does not act as the student’s representative.
Students should read pages 1 and 2 of the publishing agreement (available at www.grad.uiuc.edu/forms/diss_pub/1-07dpa-2.pdf) in order to understand their options before signing the agreement. ProQuest offers students a choice between open access and traditional publishing options. Additionally, ProQuest has recently added new release and restriction options.
Option OA-1 (Open Access) allows students to make their theses available to the broadest possible audience by allowing interested persons to freely access their work via the internet. In addition, readers will have the option to purchase a copy of the work on request and will be able to discover the work through major search engines. Students choosing this option will be required to pay an additional $95 fee and will not be eligible to receive royalties.
Option TR-1 (Traditional) allows students to make their work widely available for purchase. Readers will be able to purchase a copy of the work on request and will be able to discover the work through major search engines. Students choosing this option may be eligible to receive royalties on the sales of their work.
In some cases students may wish to embargo the release of or restrict access to their work through ProQuest/UMI. Options include embargo periods of up to 2 years, search engine restriction, and third-party sales restriction. For example, a student seeking book publication after deposit may wish to limit availability of the thesis for 2 years and/or stop it from being available via an online book retailer. To embargo the release of their work for a period of up to 2 years and/or to restrict access to their work through ProQuest/UMI, students may choose either option OA-2 (Open Access) or option TR-2 (Traditional) and check the relevant box(es). Students choosing option OA-2 will be required to pay an additional $95 fee.
Students choosing an embargo or restriction option should understand that such restriction of access applies only to availability of the work through ProQuest. Thesis copies sent to the University of Illinois Library will not be restricted unless a patent hold is approved by the Office of Technology Management (see Section 3 below for more information on patent holds).
You may use copyrighted works in your dissertation without securing permission and without paying royalties if the use of such work falls under the definition of fair use (United States Code 17, section 107). Fair use allows for the reproduction of copyrighted materials for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research. The following four factors are used to determine fair use:
If you are using materials or reproductions that do not fall under the provisions of fair use, then a statement from the copyright owner granting you permission to use the material must be submitted with the dissertation. A sample permission request letter is available at www.grad.uiuc.edu/forms/diss_pub/1-07dpa-G6.pdf. Students should be aware that the permissions process can be a lengthy one. Therefore, permission should be requested well in advance of the deposit deadline in order to allow time for copyright owners to review and grant (or possibly deny) permission to reprint. For doctoral students, this letter must also state that the copyright owner is aware that ProQuest (see below) may supply single copies upon request and may proceed under the contract on the agreement form. Two copies of this letter must be included with the rest of the deposit materials.
Inclusion of work that has been previously published by the degree candidate is a common practice in research institutions across the country, and it is permitted at the University of Illinois. In such cases, the Graduate College requires that the student state at the beginning of the chapter that the work includes previously published material. This is usually accomplished with a footnote following the chapter title, which acknowledges the previous publication, cites basic bibliographic information, and states that the copyright owner has provided permission to reprint. In scientific disciplines, it is also common for students to include material derived from a published paper with multiple authors. In such cases, the footnote must acknowledge the contribution of the other authors, including any figures, tables, or data that were not created by the author.
Students are strongly encouraged to make inquiries regarding copyright ownership for previously published material. If you have published a chapter of your thesis as a journal article or book section, you may no longer own the copyright, and you may need to request copyright permission in writing from the publisher. Most publishers are agreeable. Doctoral students must receive permission in writing from the publisher and include two copies with the rest of their deposit materials.
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of original works. Copyright protection exists from the moment the thesis is created.
The Copyright Act of 1989 does not require published works to display a copyright notice in order to secure legal protections. Many publishers, however, continue to carry the notice because the practice is considered an important means of discouraging infringement. The Thesis Office does not require that students include the notice of copyright—it is optional. See Chapter III for details on formatting the notice of copyright, if you chose to include it.
Whether or not you include a notice of copyright on your thesis, you retain the right to publish, reproduce, display, distribute, prepare derivative works from, or perform all or any part of the work—except in some unusual circumstances where students may not have sole ownership of their thesis.Such circumstances may include co-authorship of part of the thesis, support from a foundation or grant that may specify terms of ownership for resulting work, and previous publication of parts of your thesis in a journal or book. If you have published in a journal, you may have assigned the copyright to those portions of your thesis to the publisher. Please review your agreement and secure permission if necessary.
For more information about copyright law, visit www.copyright.gov.
Since revision of U.S. copyright law in 1978, it is no longer necessary to register a work with the Library of Congress to protect it, although registration carries additional benefits that you may wish to consider.
For more information about copyright registration, including procedures and current fees contact the U.S. Copyright Office at www.copyright.gov or (202) 707-3000.
Doctoral students may register their copyright themselves on the Copyright Office Web page (http://www.copyright.gov/register/literary.html) or by asking ProQuest to do it by signing the copyright registration authorization form available at www.grad.uiuc.edu/forms/diss_pub/1-07dpa-3.pdf and bringing a certified check or money order for the additional fee listed in the agreement (made payable to PQIL, the ProQuest Information and Learning Company) to the Thesis Office on the day of deposit.
If your thesis contains potentially patentable information, you may want to have it held by the Thesis Office while patentability is assessed. Holding a thesis does not postpone degree conferral or graduation. A student wishing to have a thesis held during the patent review process must contact the Office of Technology Management (OTM) at 319 Ceramics Building, 105 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, or (217) 333-7862. OTM will review the student’s request and notify the Graduate College if a thesis is to be held. Please contact OTM before the date of deposit. Shortly after each conferral date, all theses are shipped for binding; if a thesis has already been shipped, it may not be possible to recover it before it is made public. For more information, see www.otm.uiuc.edu. Request forms are available at www.otm.uiuc.edu/downloads/general-tech/ThesisWithholdForm.pdf.