This guidance relates to the procedure of submitting your Thesis to BU Library (a member of your Faculty Library Team) after the Viva examination and corrections/amendments stages
This guidance applies to publishing your thesis on BU’s Open Access repository which takes place once you have deposited your work in the library.
In your thesis you may wish to include material which is another’s work. Many works are available for reuse as long as you reference them in your work.
With material which is not made available for reuse it is not enough for you to reference the work as you do not have the right to use it under copyright law. This material could include:
Images e.g. photos or illustrations, maps or graphs
Sections of text
Although third party material can be redacted from the final version of your thesis, it is much better for your work to be used in its entirety so that it can be as cited as possible.
It can potentially save you time and prevent any delay in submitting your thesis if you check your thesis using the four steps below, and if necessary contact your faculty library team .
We have a checklist to help you keep a record of material for which you have asked permission to use.
You do not need to submit this to the library but your library team may ask for the details you include on it.
BURO is BU's online repository. As well as your thesis, you are encouraged to deposit each of your research outputs into BURO.
BURO is a
Theses are made availble Open Access. Having your research outputs in an Open Access repository enhances your profile as an early career researcher and helps maximise the impact of your work.
This can onl;y be done with the permission of the Dean of your faculty, whose signiture will be required on the Deposit of and Access to a Thesos form. Further details are available on 8A Code of Practice for Research Degrees (8.10.3)
An Integrated Thesis (also called a ‘compilation thesis’ in some institutions) at BU may contain between 2 and 5 published articles that are submitted, accepted for or planned for publication. As indicated in the 8a Code of Practice for Research Degrees, these articles must have been published/accepted etc. while the candidate is a doctoral student at BU. Normally the articles will be individually authored or if they have co-authored an article (normally with their supervisor), they should be responsible for 75% of the substantive content. Articles may substantially replace individual chapters in an integrated thesis, but the candidate must also provide a written context which may develop the methodology, literature review and conclusions, ensuring the thesis as a whole produces a clear narrative.
If you are depositing an Integrated Thesis you must use the Depositing an Integrated Thesis form to identify the nature and source of the documents you are including in your thesis
At the very latest the Depositing an Integrated Thesis form must be submitted at the same time as the Deposit and Access to a Thesis form and the thesis itself.
However, it is recommended that all doctorate candidates planning to submit an integrated thesis engage in a dialogue with their Faculty Library Team prior to this stage, to ensure the deposit of thesis process is as smooth as possible and conferment of your doctorate happens in a timely manner.
Yes, the Depositing an Integrated Thesis form must be submitted alongside 4A Deposit of Access to a Thesis form, which must be completed by all doctoral candidates and is supplied by the Doctoral College.
Deposit each article as a separate entry in BURO via BRIAN. Please use the Depositing an Integrated Thesis form to list all individual works.
It must be deposited in BURO via BRIAN, using the ‘Other’ category (not article). Prior to deposit of your article you must submit the Depositing an Integrated Theses form to your Faculty Library Team, so they and the BURO Team are aware that this work forms part of your thesis and can be treated accordingly. This work will be temporarily categorised as documentation in BURO and embargoed for one year by default. You must notify the BURO Team when your article is accepted. Once it is known that this work is the basis of a journal article a link will be created from the documentation within BURO to your journal article.
Your references may be formatted in a variety of styles according to the publication guidelines of the individual works included in your thesis. You do not need to repeat references at the end of your thesis that appear within those self-contained works (articles) or chapters. The contextual prose beyond the self-contained works should be referenced using BU Harvard or another recognised style agreed with your supervisor. The final reference list should only contain those sources referenced in the contextual prose. Any queries should be referred to your Faculty Library Team.
There will inevitably be some duplication of content in the areas of methodology and literature review. As indicated in 8a Code of Practice for Research Degrees, integrated thesis will tend to be at the upper end of the acceptable word count range for the subject area