James Cook University PhD, Professional Doctorate, or Masters by Research must be deposited. The Library will receive a copy of the final version of your thesis from the College, once your award has been confirmed in writing by the Graduate Research School. Library staff will deposit the electronic copy of your thesis in ResearchOnline@JCU. Theses in print format are no longer required.
Please refer to the JCU Research Repository Policy for further information.
Once the Library has received confirmation that your degree has been awarded and the thesis has been received from the College, Library staff will process your thesis for inclusion in ResearchOnline@JCU. You may contact researchonline@jcu.edu.au if there are special circumstances for needing your thesis to be processed more urgently.
Your JCU PhD, Professional Doctorate, or Masters by Research thesis will not be deposited in ResearchOnline@JCU by Library staff until the final examined copy has been signed off by the College Dean.
There are University guidelines and policies for preparing and submitting your thesis. Please refer to Graduate Research School Thesis Preparation, Submission and Examination pages for further information. Before lodging your thesis, make sure that you have followed the Graduate Research School HDR Thesis Preparation Guidelines and that you have understood and signed the Thesis Submission and Release Form. This form needs to be submitted when the thesis is submitted.
Convert your thesis into Portable Document Format (PDF). This is the ResearchOnline@JCU document standard. Ensure the PDF files are unsecured and that there are no digital signatures included in the document. The Library will apply read and print only settings before it goes into public view.
As your thesis is an 'unpublished work,' JCU Library will assign it a DOI. We will email you to let you know when your thesis is available in the repository, with a copy of your DOI link.
A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is a unique and persistent identifier so it is important that you do not request another DOI for your thesis. You are encouraged to use this DOI when sharing or citing your thesis as it will help to track citations and generate an Altmetric score for your work.
As an ongoing project, ResearchOnline@JCU staff will retrospectively provide DOIs to all theses already available in ResearchOnline@JCU.
Theses made available online are still considered to be 'unpublished documents' and receive the same high level of protection under the Copyright Act as print theses.
However, you must obtain written permission from the copyright owners for online publishing of any material where the copyright is not your own.
Before you submit your thesis, check your thesis for any material that is subject to copyright such as tables, maps (e.g., Google maps), illustrations, photographs, etc. Please include any permission statements from copyright owners in an appendix of the electronic copy of your thesis.
If your thesis contains your own published papers, you must obtain permission from the copyright holders to include that material in your thesis.
Please also refer to:
ResearchOnline@JCU enables worldwide access to your thesis. However, some theses need to be restricted wholly or in part for a period of time. The need for restrictions should be declared in the Thesis Submission and Release Form.
ResearchOnline@JCU allows the following access:
Candidates can place an embargo of up to 12 months on their thesis. Candidates may request longer embargoes and other restrictions on access to their work at the discretion/approval of the Dean of Postgraduate Studies. See the HDR Library Theses Deposit Procedure for more information on embargoes and exemptions.
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