Thesis for examination

You generally don’t need copyright permission to include images, diagrams, graphs, words, and other copyright material you sourced from the internet or elsewhere in your thesis for examination only. This activity is generally considered a fair dealing for research or study under the Australian Copyright Act.

Thesis for publication on Griffith Research Online ( GRO ) after examination

Your responsibilities

1. Get permission to include copyright material—including adapted material—belonging to others.

2. Consider whether you need an extended embargo on your thesis publication.

3. Redact your signature and any sensitive data.

Get permission

You are responsible for getting written permission to include any material whose copyright belongs to others in your thesis for publication. This includes images, diagrams, graphs, text, your published articles as well as material from the internet and material you adapt.

Note that you don’t require permission when including:

• material with a suitable Creative Commons licence or other open licence
• out-of-copyright material
• an insubstantial portion of material - mostly applies only to text
• a fair dealing of material for criticism or review.

If you don’t obtain permission or your use does not fall under one of the exceptions listed above, then you must redact the material from your thesis before publication.

In instances where a journal has a lengthy embargo waiting period before a candidate’s article can be published in their thesis, the candidate should either redact the article or request an additional embargo on their thesis publication beyond the standard 12 months after conferral. Email thesisexams@griffith.edu.au to request an additional embargo.

How to get copyright permission

Redact signature and sensitive data

Make sure to redact your signature from your thesis before publication to prevent identity theft. Additionally, you should redact sensitive data from your thesis before submitting it for publication on GRO. This includes personal information, comments or medical data pertaining to individuals you do not have specific written consent to publish. This information may typically appear in the body of the text, tables or appendices containing data. It also includes Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property ( ICIP ) for which you do not have written consent to publish.

How to redact content from a document