Thesis Guidance

PhD theses form a rich and previously untapped research resource. University and national repositories all over the world now collect research theses and make their details, and often their full text, available online to everyone, everywhere.

Take a look at the thesis collection in TROVE, the National Library of Australia, for example, or South Africa’s National Electronic Thesis & Dissertation Portal, or theses at an Institutional Repository like ORBi at the University of Liege.

The British Library’s Electronic Thesis Online Service (EThOS) provides a UK collection by harvesting from university repositories across the country. EThOS provides access to over 300,000 UK thesis records and access to over 100,000 UK full text theses and it harvests theses from our Aberystwyth Research Portal, as well as those from 120 other UK universities, at least monthly.

Benefits of thesis deposit

  • Raises author and institution profile through circulation and citations
  • Research community benefits from access to findings that otherwise are not published.
  • Research can be accessed, read and built upon by people outside of traditional UK Higher Education
  • Research is easily shared through use of permanent online identifier

Thesis deposit at Aberystwyth University

Aberystwyth University made deposit of postgraduate dissertations and theses mandatory in 2009 with possible embargoes for sensitive or commercial research.

Research postgraduates should submit an electronic copy of their thesis to their department with the print version, along with the declaration forms (see below) who should then send both to Information Services. Each thesis is then uploaded into the the University’s current research information system PURE, along with bibliographic information and an abstract. After it has been cleared by the University’s copyright manager these will be made available online via the Aberystwyth Research Portal.

If a postgraduate has requested an embargo to prevent immediate Open Access and this has been signed off by a senior member of their department on the above form, then the bibliographic data and abstract only, will be visible to the public – and if appropriate the thesis will become visible after a two year period.

Further information:

For further guidance and information please contact is@aber.ac.uk with ‘theses’ in the subject line.