About ADT
The Australasian Digital Theses (ADT) is a distributed database of theses produced by the postgraduate research students at Australian and New Zealand universities. Theses are available to the world electronically in Portable Document Format (PDF), thus providing access to, and promoting Australian research to the international community. For more information please refer to the ADT Program.
Deposit your Thesis
Masters by Research and PhD students are normally required to deposit both a print and a digital copy of their thesis for inclusion into the QUT Library collection, at the conclusion of their study program. Students should deposit both print and digital copies with the Research Students Centre.
Please first read the Research Students Centre's Requirements for Presenting Theses for more information on depositing your thesis. For further assistance please contact the Research Students Centre staff or email pg.thesisexam@qut.edu.au
ADT Copyright
Here is some guidance on copyright implications of ADT at QUT:
Publication
A thesis uploaded to the ADT site is thereby published electronically. However, this is unlikely to affect its subsequent chances of publication in print or electronic form, as it will most likely require extensive revision for publication as a book or article. Publication on the ADT site does not restrict the author's ability to publish elsewhere. Permission to publish elsewhere, or otherwise deal with the thesis is not required to be obtained from the ADT.
Ownership of copyright in the thesis
Publication on the ADT site has no effect whatsoever on the ownership of the copyright in the thesis. This remains with the author until he/she transfers it to another entity.
Inclusion of the works of others
If a student has reproduced someone else's copyright work in the thesis, it must be correctly referenced. In addition to referencing, permission to reproduce it must be obtained from the copyright owner if the thesis is published on the ADT site or elsewhere . Note that diagrams and photographs are copyright works in themselves. The QUT Copyright Guide deals with this matter in detail
A thesis containing previously published articles
If a candidate has previously published parts of their thesis as journal articles, they will need to determine who owns the copyright in those articles. If this copyright is held by another ie they have signed over the copyright to the journal publisher, then they must obtain clearance before publishing on the ADT site.
Submission of a thesis to the ADT project is highly unlikely to disadvantage the author, in either submitting the work to other databases, or in presenting the work for print publication. Contribution of theses to the ADT enhances the intellectual commons, and makes the works accessible to other workers in the field. If theses are accessible, they are more likely to be found and cited by other researchers.
QUT Copyright Officer, 2006.