Doctoral dissertations are original contributions to scholarship. As a condition for receipt of the doctorate, all students are required to execute a publication agreement with ProQuest UMI Dissertation Publishing granting ProQuest non-exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, and sell their dissertations. If a dissertation includes copyrighted material beyond fair use, the author must obtain permission from the holder of the copyright.
The public sharing of original dissertation research is a principle to which the University is deeply committed, and dissertations should be made available to the scholarly community at the University of Chicago and elsewhere in a timely manner. If dissertation authors are concerned that making their research publicly available might endanger research subjects or themselves, jeopardize a pending patent, complicate publication of a revised dissertation, or otherwise be unadvisable, they may, in consultation with faculty in their field (and as appropriate, research collaborators), restrict access to their dissertation for a limited period of time according to the guidelines outlined by the Dissertation Office. If a dissertation author needs to renew an embargo at the end of its term or initiate an embargo after graduation, the author must contact the Dissertation Office with the embargo request. Embargo renewals may be approved only in rare instances, and in general no more than one renewal will be allowed.
All dissertations must follow the instructions provided in the University-Wide Requirements for the Ph.D. Dissertation, available from the Dissertation Office on the first floor of the Joseph Regenstein Library.