Theses and article publication: New web page explains publisher policies

The MIT Libraries Office of Scholarly Publishing & Licensing is offering a new web page that summarizes key publisher policies regarding article publication and theses.

The policies described cover two different scenarios: graduate students’ rights to reuse their previously published articles in their theses; and the acceptance of a submitted article when the content first appeared in a graduate student author’s previously released thesis.

This information is useful for graduate student authors who are publishing articles based on thesis content before or after the thesis is submitted. This is because journal publishers normally acquire the copyright to scholarly articles through a publication agreement with the author, and publisher policies then determine what authors can do with their work, including whether the author has the right to incorporate the article into a thesis. For cases where the thesis is released first, journal policies vary with respect to what constitutes unacceptable “prior publication” of the article content.

For more information, or to request that additional publishers be added to the page, contact copyright-lib@mit.edu

Also see other information on thesis preparation:
Reuse of figures, images, and other content in theses
General information about thesis preparation