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Depositing Your Digital Thesis

Congratulations and thank you for contributing your thesis to The Sydney eScholarship Repository Digital Thesis Project!

Before you load your thesis there are a few things to consider:

Please note: The Sydney Digital Thesis Project can only accept PhD and Masters (Research) theses. If you are unsure if you can submit please contact your Faculty Liaison Librarian for clarification.

1. Using .pdf format to submit your thesis.

To deposit your thesis you will need to convert the file to PDF - Portable Document Format. This is a secure and archive-friendly file format and is the standard for the Australian Digital Theses Project, which the Library contributes to. Several free services for converting documents to .pdf format are available on the Web including:

If the file is larger than 5 megabytes it is a good idea to split it up into a number of smaller files. This is for the consideration of users downloading the thesis.

To prevent extraction of text and images from your work please read "Preventing Text and Image Extraction from a PDF File"

2. Naming your files

Please name your file(s) in a meaningful way.
Suggested formats include:
For a single file: initials-lastname-year awarded-thesis

  • sp-christensen-2007-thesis.pdf
For multiple files: number them sequentially:
  • 01sp-christensen-2007-thesis.pdf
  • 02sp-christensen-2007-thesis.pdf

3. Copyright

If your thesis contains material that you have published elsewhere you will need to gain written permission from your publisher before depositing your thesis. Please consider discussing your wish to contribute to the Thesis project with your publisher before you sign the publishing contract. Examples of contracts you could consider are available at: http://www.arl.org/sparc/author/addendum.html (Author's Addendum as recommended by the SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)

For a comprehensive guide relating to copyright and depositing your thesis please see: Copyright Guide for Research Students: What you need to know about copyright before depositing your electronic thesis in an online repository. The OAK Law Project has produced this guide. As well as this you can also use the University of Sydney "Guide to Copyright"

If you wish to place an embargo on your digital copy please contact Sten Christensen sten.christensen@sydney.edu.au

4. Start depositing your thesis.

Go to the deposit form.