For HDR students

When you submit your thesis you will need to include a certificate of authorship stating the content does not infringe third party copyright.

HDR students and supervisors should be aware that third party copyright material can be included in a copy of a thesis submitted for examination under the fair dealing exception for research and study purposes.  However, the fair dealing exception for research and study does not apply to publicly available copies of your thesis on CRO. You will need to seek permission or a licence to include any third-party material before your thesis is accepted in CRO.

When you submit a thesis to CRO, the library will check that any third-party content is openly licensed or that you have permission for reuse from the copyright holder. To assist in this process, you can:

  • Indicate openly licensed or public domain content with an appropriate attribution statement.
  • Include 'used with permission' in an attribution statement if applicable.
  • Send copies of permission letters to cro@csu.edu.au when you submit your work to CRO.

See the CRO guide for more information.

Reusing your own publications in your thesis

When publishing an article that you intend to include in a thesis by publication:

  • Check the publisher allows reuse in theses;
  • Notify the publisher of your intention when you submit the article;
  • Negotiate your rights and obtain a written agreement if there is any doubt.

If you have already signed a publishing agreement for an article you want to reuse in a thesis:

  • Review the publishing agreement to ascertain if reuse in a thesis is allowed.
  • Seek permission from the publisher if there is any doubt.

For more information, see:

Publishing from your thesis

It is common practice to publish research outputs based on work completed and submitted in a thesis. It is your own work, so not copyright infringement; however, it may risk accusations of self-plagiarism.

Plagiarism is a breach of research integrity by failing to acknowledge the source of ideas and work of other researchers through citation and referencing.

Self-plagiarism is failing to acknowledge the reuse of your work in different publications without referencing the original. Self-plagiarism is considered unethical because it can falsely elevate a person’s research output and confuse readers into believing old research is new, however, there may be situations when recycling text is necessary. The key is to be transparent. Inform editors if you are submitting an article for publication based on a thesis and reference your previous publications.

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