Hi all,
UBC’s English department is raising a spirited challenge to UBC’s open access policy for ETDs. The current test case: a former student will be publishing a book with Routledge Press that is based on her dissertation, and she and the English department requested a 100-year embargo. This number is based on the expected remaining lifespan of the author plus 70 years – in other words, they’re asking for an embargo for the full length of the copyright period. The publisher has no objection to the dissertation being open access, but the author’s (and the English department’s) contention is that “An unknowing reader (I'm thinking an undergraduate) or a frugal reader (someone looking for a way to read my book without purchasing) could search for the book, encounter the dissertation on your open access online platform, "cIRcle", and read that instead. This is bad for my book sales and it is also bad for the intellectual reputation of my work. While the dissertation and the book are an early and a final version of the same work, the book is the vastly superior version and as such the only version I would like my readers to have access to.”
I’m interested to know if any other institutions are encountering or have encountered such resistance to what is now the normal practice of public universities worldwide – the open access of their student works. I’m combing the available literature (thank you NDLTD!) and if anyone has links or pointers, I’d be most grateful.
Many thanks,
Max
Max Read
Associate Director, Student Academic Services
Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies | Office of the Dean and Vice-Provost
The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus
170-6371 Crescent Road | Vancouver BC | V6T 1Z2 Canada
Phone 604 822 0283
max....@ubc.ca
| http://www.grad.ubc.ca

Rhonda J. Marker (she/her)
Interim Associate University Librarian
Rutgers University - Newark
185 University Avenue
Newark, NJ 07102
973- 353-5160
https://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/newark
Currently reading: Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
Thanks, Jonah and Rhonda. I should have said, this is a PhD in English, not an MFA – those are semi-restricted permanently at UBC. All doctoral-level research though, in the form of ETDs, is open access, with limited embargoes available if justified.
Thanks,
m
Max Read
Associate Director, Student Academic Services
Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies | Office of the Dean and Vice-Provost
The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus
170-6371 Crescent Road | Vancouver BC | V6T 1Z2 Canada
Phone 604 822 0283
max....@ubc.ca |
http://www.grad.ubc.ca
From: Jonah McAllister-Erickson <jonah.mcalli...@mail.wvu.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2024 12:02 PM
To: Read, Max <max....@ubc.ca>; ETD <e...@ndltd.org>; Rhonda Marker <rma...@rutgers.edu>
Subject: Re: Any changes to attitudes and embargoes for English (subject) ETDs?
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Like at Rutgers, West Virginia University allows MFAs in creative writing to be permeant campus only access, but also available through Interlibrary Loan. That arrangement was in place long before I started at WVU and after meeting with the Office of Grad Ed and the library administration there hasn't been the will to push back on that aspect of the ETD policy.
/ Jonah Y. McAllister-Erickson, MLIS
Scholarly Communication Librarian
Downtown Campus Library
West Virginia University Libraries
He/Him/His/They/Them (What are these?)
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Thanks Jill – I quite agree, but it’s helpful to know that other universities have the same perspective.
Best,
m
Max Read
Associate Director, Student Academic Services
Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies | Office of the Dean and Vice-Provost
The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus
170-6371 Crescent Road | Vancouver BC | V6T 1Z2 Canada
Phone 604 822 0283
max....@ubc.ca |
http://www.grad.ubc.ca
From: Kleister, Jill <Jill.K...@unt.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2024 12:44 PM
To: Read, Max <max....@ubc.ca>; 'Jonah McAllister-Erickson' <jonah.mcalli...@mail.wvu.edu>; ETD <e...@ndltd.org>; Rhonda Marker <rma...@rutgers.edu>
Subject: RE: [EXT] [etd] RE: Any changes to attitudes and embargoes for English (subject) ETDs?
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Hi Max,
My two cents.
I understand that the student thinks the book is vastly superior to the dissertation, and wouldn’t like anyone to get to the dissertation… but almost every student I can think of has similar thoughts. A couple/three years post-graduation, they cringe at their “immature” or “underdeveloped”or “unprofessional” dissertation. So many things they would have done differently, or better, or, or, or… ! But that’s exactly what these things are; a step on the path to growing intellectual rigor and professionalism. It’s the nature of the beast.
Knowing you and your institution, I am very sure this was all very explicit at the get-go. This is what students sign up for when they start the doctoral journey, as part of the “institutional contract.” If she didn’t like this fact, then she could have either never gotten on the Doctoral Bus or got off at any time before this… but she didn’t. She continued. She doesn’t get to cry foul at the finish line. She is subject to all the institutional requirements, including open access.
If the publisher has no beef then I don’t see why this student should get special treatment.
Hope you are well,
Jill
J. S. Kleister, M.S.
Graduate Reader
Toulouse Graduate School | University of North Texas
Chestnut Hall, Suite 103
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/ndltd.org/d/msgid/etd/31cb755d67aa4a8d9b28cba1262d64a1%40ubc.ca.
Wow, sorry you’re having to deal with this situation, Max. I wonder if you and/or your colleagues have discussed any of this info with the author and English Department:
You can also point to all the other universities in North America that openly share the scholarship of their students, and maybe you can find language at UBC about one of the requirements of a PhD at the UBC college/school the English Department sits in being the deposit of the dissertation in your repository along with the public sharing of it. I agree with a previous poster who said that this student should have long ago gotten off the “Doctoral bus” if they didn’t want their scholarly work shared on your repository. Why should they receive special treatment?
I will say we have granted 100-year embargoes on around 5 of our theses (no dissertations, IIRC) for two reasons: (1) The physical safety the author would have been put in jeopardy if her thesis had been openly shared, and (2) a specific faculty member runs a lab investigating questions resulting from an event that has engendered litigation over the years, and she does not want master’s students working in her lab to be pulled into a lawsuit. When this type of request is made, we in the library require a formal letter from the dean of the college or school authorizing the “permanent” embargo – that way, we know the dean is informed and has approved.
I hope some of the above ideas help. Please keep us posted, Max!
Best of luck,
Jody
Jody Bailey, MA, MLIS (she, her)
Head, Scholarly Communications Office
Emory University
Schedule an appointment with me
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4226-4173
I sometimes work flexibly and send emails outside normal office hours.
No need to respond to my emails outside yours.
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Read, Max <max....@ubc.ca>: Aug 16 06:38PM
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Rhonda Marker <rma...@rutgers.edu>: Aug 16 06:43PM
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Read, Max <max....@ubc.ca>: Aug 16 07:07PM
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From: 'Rhonda Marker' via ETD <e...@ndltd.org<mailto:e...@ndltd.org>> |
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UBC's English department is raising a spirited challenge to UBC's open access policy for ETDs. The current test case: a former student will be publishing a book with Routledge Press that is based on her dissertation, and she and the English department requested
a 100-year embargo. This number is based on the expected remaining lifespan of the author plus 70 years - in other words, they're asking for an embargo for the full length of the copyright period. The publisher has no objection to the dissertation being open
access, but the author's (and the English department's) contention is that "An unknowing reader (I'm thinking an undergraduate) or a frugal reader (someone looking for a way to read my book without purchasing) could search for the book, encounter the dissertation
on your open access online platform, "cIRcle", and read that instead. This is bad for my book sales and it is also bad for the intellectual reputation of my work. While the dissertation and the book are an early and a final version of the same work, the book
is the vastly superior version and as such the only version I would like my readers to have access to." |
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Read, Max <max....@ubc.ca>: Aug 16 08:17PM
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I understand that the student thinks the book is vastly superior to the dissertation, and wouldn't like anyone to get to the dissertation... but almost every student I can think of has similar thoughts. A couple/three years post-graduation, they cringe at their
"immature" or "underdeveloped"or "unprofessional" dissertation. So many things they would have done differently, or better, or, or, or... ! But that's exactly what these things are; a step on the path to growing intellectual rigor and professionalism. It's
the nature of the beast. |
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Thanks, Jonah and Rhonda. I should have said, this is a PhD in English, not an MFA - those are semi-restricted permanently at UBC. All doctoral-level research though, in the form of ETDs, is open access, with limited embargoes available if justified. |
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He/Him/His/They/Them (What are these?<https://www.mypronouns.org/>) |
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From: 'Rhonda Marker' via ETD <e...@ndltd.org<mailto:e...@ndltd.org>> |
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To: Read, Max <max....@ubc.ca<mailto:max....@ubc.ca>>; ETD <e...@ndltd.org<mailto:e...@ndltd.org>> |
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https://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/newark<https://www.libraries.rutgers.wedu/newark> |
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To: ETD <e...@ndltd.org<mailto:e...@ndltd.org>> |
|
UBC's English department is raising a spirited challenge to UBC's open access policy for ETDs. The current test case: a former student will be publishing a book with Routledge Press that is based on her dissertation, and she and the English department requested
a 100-year embargo. This number is based on the expected remaining lifespan of the author plus 70 years - in other words, they're asking for an embargo for the full length of the copyright period. The publisher has no objection to the dissertation being open
access, but the author's (and the English department's) contention is that "An unknowing reader (I'm thinking an undergraduate) or a frugal reader (someone looking for a way to read my book without purchasing) could search for the book, encounter the dissertation
on your open access online platform, "cIRcle", and read that instead. This is bad for my book sales and it is also bad for the intellectual reputation of my work. While the dissertation and the book are an early and a final version of the same work, the book
is the vastly superior version and as such the only version I would like my readers to have access to." |
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Hi Max,
My two cents.
I understand that the student thinks the book is vastly superior to the dissertation, and wouldn’t like anyone to get to the dissertation… but almost every student I can think of has similar thoughts. A couple/three years post-graduation, they cringe at their “immature” or “underdeveloped”or “unprofessional” dissertation. So many things they would have done differently, or better, or, or, or… ! But that’s exactly what these things are; a step on the path to growing intellectual rigor and professionalism. It’s the nature of the beast.
Knowing you and your institution, I am very sure this was all very explicit at the get-go. This is what students sign up for when they start the doctoral journey, as part of the “institutional contract.” If she didn’t like this fact, then she could have either never gotten on the Doctoral Bus or got off at any time before this… but she didn’t. She continued. She doesn’t get to cry foul at the finish line. She is subject to all the institutional requirements, including open access.
If the publisher has no beef then I don’t see why this student should get special treatment.
Hope you are well,
Jill
J. S. Kleister, M.S.
Graduate Reader
Toulouse Graduate School | University of North Texas
Chestnut Hall, Suite 103
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2024 2:08 PM
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/ndltd.org/d/msgid/etd/31cb755d67aa4a8d9b28cba1262d64a1%40ubc.ca.
Hi Jody,
Sorry for the delayed response! This is really helpful, and I’ve passed it on to our new Associate Dean who’s been tasked with dealing with the English department’s concerns.
Your question about finding language at UBC about public sharing of dissertations is one we’re trying to address, so far unsuccessfully. In UBC’s first Calendar in 1915, there’s a policy that theses and dissertations must be put in the library. It seems this requirement has never been updated or formally expressed in policy since – it’s just one of those things that “everyone knows”. Attempts to get formal endorsement of the requirement for them not only to be deposited in the library, but for that deposit to be electronic and open access, did not go high enough up the university food chain. And there is still the questions of: even if they must be deposited in the library, does that necessarily mean they must be in the electronic repository?
Feeling a bit as if we may be going backwards at this point….
m
Max Read
Associate Director, Student Academic Services
Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies | Office of the Dean and Vice-Provost
The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus
170-6371 Crescent Road | Vancouver BC | V6T 1Z2 Canada
Phone 604 822 0283
From: Bailey, Jody Elizabeth <jody....@emory.edu>
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2024 5:03 PM
To: e...@ndltd.org
Subject: Re: [etd] Any changes to attitudes and embargoes for English (subject) ETDs?
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Structure… G+PS (Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies) and the Library have had an agreement since the start of ETDs, endorsed by the Dean and the Head Librarian, for ETDs to go in cIRcle. The Library also digitized all previous theses (going back to 1915) with the understanding that if an author objected, the thesis would be removed from the repository but the metadata would remain. This because the licence they agreed to made no mention of electronic distribution. Since then, every cIRcle licence has been specific about electronic distribution and open access, but the problem is that students don’t find out the terms of depositing their theses until they’ve almost finished their programs. They don’t get that information up front (it’s available on the website of course but that’s the last thing they’re looking for at the beginning of their programs).
At the time I wanted the agreement between G+PS and the Library to go further, and be tested as a formal policy proposal, but it was deemed unnecessary. Now of course, it would be nice to have, and will perhaps be what we try to get, but the door has been opened for not all theses to go in cIRcle and that, I think, is a step back to a different way of doing things.
m
Max Read
Associate Director, Student Academic Services
Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies | Office of the Dean and Vice-Provost
The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus
170-6371 Crescent Road | Vancouver BC | V6T 1Z2 Canada
Phone 604 822 0283
max....@ubc.ca |
http://www.grad.ubc.ca
From: Jonah McAllister-Erickson <jonah.mcalli...@mail.wvu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2024 11:52 AM
To: Read, Max <max....@ubc.ca>; 'Bailey, Jody Elizabeth' <jody....@emory.edu>; e...@ndltd.org
Subject: Re: [etd] Any changes to attitudes and embargoes for English (subject) ETDs?
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[CAUTION: Non-UBC Email] |
What is the structure at UBC like?
At WVU when I started we didn't have a policy around embargoes and removals of ETDs. One thing I worked on early on was writing a policy and getting it approved by the Office of Graduate Education and Life, which is functionally the graduate college at the University. This was in response to a request from an Alumni to remove access to their thesis and delete the metadata. The full text had been embargoed before I was even consulted, but I was able to stop the removal of the metadata.
Since OGEL sets the general degree requirements, such as the minimum requirements of PhD committees etc. it seem crucial that any policy about the availability to ETDs be their policy, even if the library would ends up enforcing it.
This might be a situation where you end up losing this particular fight, but it could set you up to have a policy going forward.
Best,
Jonah
/ Jonah Y. McAllister-Erickson, MLIS
Scholarly Communication Librarian
Downtown Campus Library
West Virginia University Libraries
I’m a librarian, not a lawyer. I provide information, not legal advice.
Any copyright guidance I give is strictly informational and intended to educate you about copyright law and institutional policy in general terms. If you are unclear about your options when confronted with a specific legal issue related to copyright, you are urged to consult with an attorney with a background in copyright law. If you have specific legal questions about institutional policy, copyright, or intellectual property, related to your work at WVU please contact the Office of General Counsel.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/ndltd.org/d/msgid/etd/0fbbf7f680254a8aa77adf1ec456970a%40ubc.ca.
Hi Max,
I would think you could refer to the agreement between the Library and G+PS as evidence that all students must submit their work to your repository. If you’ve already tried that and gotten pushback, perhaps you can gather data on your peers and aspirational peers to highlight that UBC would be violating the norms of other Canadian academic institutions by giving broad permission for their students to not deposit their work in your repository.
To that end, in case it’s helpful to you and/or others on this list, I’m including a PDF containing research I did in June 2023 about embargo policies at the top 25 U.S. universities as ranked by U.S. News & World Report at that time. In general, I’m not fond of their rankings, but they worked for the purposes of this task since Emory is #23 on this list, so our peers and aspirational peers are all there (although I get different info about which institutions are peers and aspirational peers from different people on my campus).
I hope some of the above helps.
Best,
Jody
Jody Bailey, MA, MLIS (she, her)
Head, Scholarly Communications Office
Emory University
Schedule an appointment with me
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4226-4173
I sometimes work flexibly and send emails outside normal office hours.
No need to respond to my emails outside yours.
Hi Jody,
This is great, and very helpful! Thanks!
As a small return offering, I’ve attached a small survey I did in November 2023 of practices at Canadian universities. The general agreement seems clear.
We’ll try to dig up the agreement, but I was at a lower level then and don’t have it, and unless the Library does (I’m counting on them; librarians are great at document management!) we might have a problem. The current deans seem to be interested in a complete revisit of how theses are made available, so perhaps it won’t matter much what’s been agreed on in the past.
I’m going to be away for two weeks starting next week, so it will be interesting to see what I come back to! Thanks again for the data on US universities.
Best,
m
Max Read
Associate Director, Student Academic Services
Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies | Office of the Dean and Vice-Provost
The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus
170-6371 Crescent Road | Vancouver BC | V6T 1Z2 Canada
Phone 604 822 0283
Thanks for sharing your research, Max! I find the lengths of embargoes in the Canadian institutions in your spreadsheet very interesting. Several are 1 year max, and a few offer a max of 2 years, so shorter on average than those I researched. I also find if very interesting that not a single one of them sends reminders to alumni that their embargoes are expiring. Our system sends alumni automated reminders 60 days, 30 days, 1 week, and 1 day before embargoes expire. I’m guessing if we didn’t send them, we would not get nearly as many requests for embargo extensions. I was not at Emory when our current repository was set up, so I don’t know why the decision was made to send reminders. I may investigate that question and see if I can propose that the reminders no longer be sent. Unfortunately, at Emory, our partner is not a single entity like a grad school – we deal with four different schools (soon to be five) who each have their own ideas about ETD administration, so it’s likely I’d have to work with each school to get approval to eliminate reminders.
At UNT, we do allow a “restricted access” extension to an embargo, but from the get-go the burden is on the students to let us know that they want it. This way, no UNT entity is responsible for any adverse consequences. Here is a snip from our manual (the table is preceded by a verbal description of embargo stuff):

As a practical matter, we don’t often get extension requests.
Best wishes,
Jill
J. S. Kleister, M.S.
Graduate Reader
Toulouse Graduate School | University of North Texas
Chestnut Hall, Suite 103
From: Bailey, Jody Elizabeth <jody....@emory.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 30, 2024 11:06 AM
To: Read, Max <max....@ubc.ca>; e...@ndltd.org
Subject: RE: [External] RE: [etd] Any changes to attitudes and embargoes for English (subject) ETDs?
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Hi Jody,
I wish we didn’t have to send reminders! We have no way of sending them automatically, so a staff member has to track all the embargoed theses and send out manual emails (from a template) each month to remind people the embargoes are expiring. We tried announcing a few years ago that we would no longer do this, and that it would be up to the former student and faculty to let us know if they wanted an extension, and there was such a fuss and fury from faculty that we went back to doing all this manual work to keep them happy and irresponsible. I was interested to see when I did the research that none of our peer Canadian universities do reminders.
If they could be sent automatically I wouldn’t mind. But neither cIRcle nor the student record system (which I wouldn’t trust anyway) has the ability to do that.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/ndltd.org/d/msgid/etd/DM4PR05MB95368468F9C9228EB4749913E0972%40DM4PR05MB9536.namprd05.prod.outlook.com.
Hi Jill,
I wish we could put the burden on students and faculty – but see my reply to Jody.
I’m surprised that you don’t get extension requests. We get them commonly from English (for 100 years – eyeroll) and Art History, because of hoped-for or pending academic press publications, and from Chemistry, Biomechanical Engineering, and some of the medical programs for journal publications for which additional experiments are needed. As long as something seems to be happening, we pretty much always grant them. We have a few long-term ones for safety reasons.
m
Max Read
Associate Director, Student Academic Services
Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies | Office of the Dean and Vice-Provost
The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus
170-6371 Crescent Road | Vancouver BC | V6T 1Z2 Canada
Phone 604 822 0283
max....@ubc.ca |
http://www.grad.ubc.ca
From: Kleister, Jill <Jill.K...@unt.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 30, 2024 9:21 AM
To: e...@ndltd.org
Subject: [etd] Embargo extensions
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