Your thesis: final steps

After the final version of your thesis has been approved by the Dean of Graduate Research, you will be emailed at your Flinders email address, with instructions to upload your thesis to the University's digital repository.  Uploading your final thesis is a requirement of all HDR students.

All HDR students will have a sanction applied to their account until their final thesis has been uploaded to the library and approved. This sanction prevents you from receiving your Academic Transcript and Testamur.  After receiving your completion email from the Dean of Graduate Research you should allow approximately 3 working days for your sanction to be removed. You can check whether you have a sanction by logging into your Student Information System and looking under the 'My Graduation tab' page.

You must follow the Library's submission instructions to upload a digital copy of your thesis to the Library.

There will be three steps to uploading your thesis:

1. Consideration of copyright material in your thesis.
2. Preparing your thesis files. Note: you have the option of submitting two versions of your thesis. If you do not have copyright permissions for applicable sections of your thesis you will need to upload a master copy of your thesis and a version of your thesis for public access.
3. Consider if you need to embargo your thesis.

Once you have uploaded your thesis, The Office of Graduate Research will then confirm that you have completed the requirements for your degree.

Unless otherwise approved by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) (or nominee) in accordance with the provisions of Section 5.3 of the HDR examination procedures policy, theses accepted for the award of a degree* and uploaded to the University's digital repository shall be available for open access.

The advantages of Open Access to your thesis include:

• The research has a global audience, and students gain worldwide exposure and recognition
• More immediate access to research findings is available 
• Access is independent of time, place and computer system/platform
• Theses are protected from physical damage or loss

There are no costs involved in making your thesis available to a global audience.

When uploading your final thesis to the library, you can request to restrict access to your thesis completely for a period of up to 3 years subject to approval by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) (or nominee). Such requests will be considered only on one or more of the following grounds:

• that the thesis contains confidential and/or sensitive material
• that it was a condition imposed by the owner of private records and material used by the author
• that the author was in an employment or other contract relationship with a third party that made the restriction a condition of the contract
  
• that the thesis contains creative, critical, academic or equivalent material with a likelihood of publication, performance or equivalents.

In exceptional circumstances, longer periods of restriction or a total embargo may be approved by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) (or nominee).

As the author, you own the copyright in your thesis. However, you need to be aware of any third-party material you used in your thesis, as you will not own the copyright and will likely need permission to include the material in the open access version of your thesis.

Examples of third party copyright material can include images and photos you did not create, graphs and figures from elsewhere, tables directly copied and pasted, journal article and conference papers, even if you wrote and referenced them, substantial quotes and text extracts and unpublished material from an archive or museum.

Further information about copyright materials and how to apply for permissions is available through the Library Thesis Submission.

From the 1st January 2023 all students must have a Unique Student Identifier (USI) before they can have their degree conferred. If you do not already have a USI, the process to apply for one is fast and free. For further information please visit USI.

HDR students can claim up to $500 towards the cost of thesis editing and optional printing and binding of the final thesis copy. For reimbursement please complete an online request through Inspire.

Claims must be made within three months of completing your degree.

You can use the title "Dr" once your degree has been conferred by Flinders University. The conferral process occurs at a graduation ceremony or via one of the monthly absentia conferrals.

For further information about graduation and conferral procedures, visit Graduation.

After completion of your degree and graduation you will have access to your Flinders University email for 12 months.

Due to restrictions placed on the university by external content providers, library access concludes after the last day of your enrolment.

Post graduation Library access is available to Flinders University alumni for a modest fee and includes borrowing rights and access to a selection of listed databases.

We are extremely proud of your achievements as a Flinders graduate and would love to hear how your career progresses.

Flinders University Alumni, is a great way to keep in touch post-graduation and provides the opportunity to stay connected with the with Flinders University community.