Parts of dissertation already published

[Teresa Schultz]

Hey everyone,

 

I’ve run into a bit of an interesting situation I’d like to get some insight on. One of our grad students has already had parts of his dissertation published as articles – before he was done with his dissertation. He plans on using these articles as chapters in his dissertation, but he’s already signed his copyright away to them, so there’s concern about how he can now publish his dissertation (our students are required to submit to both ProQuest and our IR). The best idea I’ve come up with, short of contacting each of the journals for permission, is to rely on this as printing the accepted version, which all of the journals allow, albeit with different requirements (two of them specify no commercial repositories, which would seem to negate uploading the dissertation to Proquest). Has anyone run into this situation before, and if so, any advice on how to address it?

Teresa Schultz

Scholarly Communications and Copyright Librarian

University of Nevada, Reno

[Molly Keener]

Hi Teresa,

Many publishers allow students to include previously published articles as chapters in their ETDs, so long as the journal is cited as the source of the original publication. At my institution, we allow students to include those chapters as the final published PDF or final author's manuscript - whichever the publisher allows - with a cover page providing the journal citation as dictated by the publisher. We've been contributing to PQ for years under this practice, without issue.

Best, Molly

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Molly Keener
Director of Digital Initiatives & Scholarly Communication
Z. Smith Reynolds Library
Wake Forest University
336.758.5829

zsr.wfu.edu/scholarship
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[Teresa]

Hey Molly, 

That's good to hear. In these cases, have you had to approach the publishers directly for permission? Or is it more of a "ask for forgiveness" later situation?

Teresa

[Teresa]

Oh, and I should also add one more wrinkle - one of the publishers is the American Chemical Society. Has anyone had any experience with them in this situation?

Teresa

[Macklin, Lisa]

Hi Teresa,

 

You can use CCC’s database to check publisher permissions for including an article in a dissertation if you have the citation for the article (or the student can do it). 

 

I would caution against advising the student to take the approach of asking for forgiveness later.  If the student signed away all of his or her rights under copyright, the publisher is now the copyright owner.  This is a perfect time to make this a learning opportunity for the student on how to understand and hopefully better manage their rights under copyright in the future.  To put the student in the position of potentially having their dissertation taken down from the repository rather than guiding them through how to research publisher policies and permissions seems very unfair to the student.   

 

My two cents.

 

Cheers,

 

Lisa

 

Lisa A. Macklin, JD, MLS

Director, Scholarly Communications Office

Interim Director, Collections & Research and Engagement Services

Library and Information Technology Services

Emory University

Atlanta, GA 30322

404.727.1535

lisa.m...@emory.edu

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[Molly Keener]

Hi Teresa,

I echo Lisa's suggestion that you don't let this learning opportunity pass, by blithely relying on the "ask forgiveness later" plan. Either the CCC database she mentioned, the publisher's site directly, or the Sherpa/Romeo database will give information that is useful for guidance in helping you and your student determine if they already have the right to include published articles as chapters, or if further action is needed.

Generally, when my students approach me with this issue, I ask first if they have a copy of the publishing agreement. Most times, the answer is no, which is the perfect opening to a discussion of author rights, copyright transfer vs. licensing, corresponding authors' roles, and joint authorship. I encourage them to first ask the corresponding author for a copy of the publishing agreement, as usually it has the terms included. From there, we either work with the agreement, or through the resources noted above, to determine if permission is needed or not. Again, in my experience, most publishers will automatically grant the right to include in a thesis or dissertation, pending specific citation requirements, without further permission needed. I have not, to my recollection, worked with ACS.

Best, Molly

[Rhonda Marker]

Hi Teresa,

 

I include a discussion of this in my workshops at our School of Graduate Studies. Here is my outline of that segment:

 

Published journal article(s) used as chapter(s) in your thesis or dissertation

Does the journal or publisher give permission to reuse the article in your dissertation?

·         Check the journal article publication agreement (signed form or digital “click-through” agreement, usually signed by the corresponding author on behalf of all co-authors), e.g., ACS: http://pubs.acs.org/paragonplus/copyright/jpa_form_a.pdf

·         Review the journal’s or publisher’s web page for their policy; look for “author guidelines” or “rights and permissions”.

·         Some journals have a link to request such use, which is generally given at no cost if you are an author or co-author.

Appropriately cite the journal article in your dissertation.

“If a thesis or dissertation is composed in part or in full of whole chapters or independent articles or reports already published, the preface or acknowledgments page must indicate this and give citations to the earlier publications.”—SGS Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Style Guide

 

I assure students/authors that this is a common practice especially among STEM disciplines. At this point in their career, they need to take responsibility for their intellectual property and this is part of the package. If they never write another peer reviewed journal article after this, then the dissertation is probably the greatest scholarly work they will produce. It should shine. And if they are just embarking on a scholarly career, then it is not too soon to learn about re-using their own work.

 

I hope this helps,

Rhonda

 

 

Rhonda J. Marker

Director of Shared User Services

Rutgers University Libraries

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

p: 848-932-5923

rma...@rutgers.edu

ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7635-816X

 

From: Teresa [mailto:tma...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2017 11:32 AM
To: Molly Keener <kee...@wfu.edu>
Cc: ETD <e...@ndltd.org>
Subject: Re: [etd] Parts of dissertation already published

 

Oh, and I should also add one more wrinkle - one of the publishers is the American Chemical Society. Has anyone had any experience with them in this situation?

 

Teresa

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[Kim Mears]

Hi Teresa,

ACS addresses this issue in their FAQ at http://pubs.acs.org/page/copyright/journals/faqs.html and their policy is available at http://pubs.acs.org/pb-assets/acspubs/Migrated/dissertation.pdf. The CCC's Rightslink service is fairly easy to use if the Graduate School requires documentation. I've helped a lot of students get a license to go along with their thesis/dissertation. 

Kim

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Kim Mears, MLIS, AHIP

Health Sciences and Scholarly Communications Librarian

Robertson Library

University of Prince Edward Island

902-566-0453| kme...@upei.ca

[Leila Belle Sterman]

Hi All, 

I have seen many papers come through with this situation and never had a problem. In fact, we have a "manuscript version" of a thesis or dissertation that is a popular option for students. Many publishers have a license ready to go to allow this use. I will agree that this is a great learning experience for the student, and add that if you can engage the student's advisor that is bonus. 

Leila Sterman

[Teresa]

Thanks to everyone for all the input. Luckily, it turned out the authors still have all their contracts, and three of them already give permission for this type of use. I have instructed them to first try contacting the editors of the fourth journal and, if that doesn't work, to then try CCC.

And interestingly enough, I haven't actually dealt with the student - my contact has all been through the advisor. So I doubt the student will learn much from this, but I did let the advisor know that in the future, they should check their contracts first before accepting them and negotiate for this right if needed.

Teresa