Publicity of a thesis

All theses at Tampere University are public documents. The principle of publicity is based on law (Act on the Openness of Government Activities 21.5.1999/621).

A thesis becomes public as soon as it has been evaluated. Thus, theses should not contain confidential or secret information. If confidential or secret information is used in a thesis, the student must agree on the use of these materials in advance with the supervisor and, in the case of a commissioned thesis, with the party that commissioned the thesis.

All confidential and secret information must be presented in unpublished appendices or background materials of the thesis. The actual thesis must be written so that it may be published openly and meets the relevant academic standards. Materials presented in a separate appendix will not be archived by the University.

According to the open science statement of Tampere University, all theses are made openly accessible online, unless the terms of an external publisher prevent open access. All theses can be accessed on computers at the Tampere University Library as well as online if the student allows this.

Article-based theses

The principle of publicity applies even if the thesis or parts of it are published as an article. Article-based theses are processed the same way as other theses. Some tips:

• If the journal and your co-authors allow it, you may give permission to publish your thesis online, in which case your thesis will be published online in Trepo, the open institutional repository of Tampere University.
• Make sure you are using the correct version of the article (pre print, post print, publisher's version) for online publishing.
• Publishers often have an online form for asking the permission or you can apply for it through the Copyright Clearence Center. Remember to request permission to publish your article as a part of your thesis. All journals do not allow the online publication of articles. Please email the publisher's permission to the Library: thesis [at] tuni.fi (thesis[at]tuni[dot]fi).
• Your thesis should have a different title than the forthcoming article because all the metadata of the theses will be published online through the Library's databases.
• If your article is still in draft phase and has not been submitted to a journal, it is not recommendable to give permission to publish the thesis online.
• For more information on requesting article permissions, see Library’s guide on Publishing a dissertation at the Tampere University.

Contact:  thesis [at] tuni.fi (thesis[at]tuni[dot]fi)