Delayed public dissemination, commonly known as an “embargo,” postpones public distribution of the thesis or dissertation that has been approved and filed with the University. In some cases, it may be reasonable and appropriate to put in place an embargo that delays public release, but only in narrowly prescribed circumstances affecting intellectual property rights (such as when a patent is being filed), to satisfy requirements for the review of grant-sponsored research, or to protect data being utilized by a team of researchers of which the graduate student was a member. Such an embargo must be limited in time.

If delayed public dissemination is necessary due to the purposes set forth in the previous paragraph, a graduate student should select this option when uploading the thesis or dissertation to the Digital Commons. The Dissertations and Theses Librarian will apply the same embargo once the student has upload the thesis or dissertation to ProQuest. The delayed release requested at the time of submission will postpone public distribution of a thesis or dissertation via both Digital Commons and ProQuest. Students may request embargoes for up to 2 years; longer time periods considered by exception.

If a thesis or dissertation has a delayed release, Digital Commons and ProQuest will display only the graduate student’s citation and abstract for the duration of the embargo. The full text of the graduate student’s thesis or dissertation will become available for public access only after the embargo expires. The Digital Commons will archive and preserve the manuscript in perpetuity.

Exception Requests for Extended Embargoes Greater than 2 Years

Under rare circumstances and prior to the filing of the thesis or dissertation, the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education (VPGE) may approve requests for time-delimited embargoes beyond the two-year limit. Requests for permanent embargoes will only be approved under truly extraordinary circumstances. A request for such an exception to this policy should be made as soon as the graduate student’s master’s or doctoral committee is aware of the need to do so. The request must be made prior to filing the thesis or dissertation. Each request will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. When an exception request is approved by the VPGE, the Library will be notified to ensure that Digital Commons and ProQuest suppresses access until the end of the approved extended embargo period.

The VPGE’s review of such requests will take the following factors into consideration:

FACTOR 1: Are there serious mitigating circumstances whereby publication of the thesis or dissertation would cause undue risks or potential harm to the author or subjects?

FACTOR 2: Will the data generated through the student’s research support other in-progress publications from people on the student’s research team, which could be impacted by public dissemination?

FACTOR 3: Is the student applying for a patent based on research that is discussed in his/her thesis or dissertation?

FACTOR 4: Is the data or material in the thesis/dissertation subject to review by the sponsor or grantor prior to publication?

FACTOR 5: Is there a need to prevent disclosure of information about persons, institutions, technologies, etc.?

FACTOR 6: Is there an academic or commercial press that has documented its requirement of manuscript embargo in order to acquire the rights to publish the thesis/dissertation as a book?

PROCEED TO THE QUESTIONS BELOW *ONLY* IF YOU WISH TO REQUEST AN EXTENDED EMBARGO BEYOND 2 YEARS.