Publish your PhD thesis

Everyone graduating with a PhD from Nord University is required to make his/her thesis openly available in the Norwegian Research Information Repository (Nasjonalt vitenarkiv, NVA) (according to the university’s PhD regulations​ § 17-3; in Norwegian only). In general, a PhD candidate owns the rights to his/her doctoral thesis, but publishers may hold some rights in case parts of a thesis are already published. Consequently, copyright clearance is required before the doctoral thesis can be archived.

The University Library is responsible for copyright clearance of publications that are to be made available in NVA (read more on copyright clearance of publications being made available in the institutional repository).

Compilation theses

In a compilation thesis, also called article-based thesis, copyright clearance of the papers is needed before publishing the printed edition. Most publishers state in their publishing contracts that it is permitted to make articles available as part of the printed version of a PhD thesis. The PhD candidate is responsible for copyright clearance of all content used in the printed PhD thesis.

The University Library is responsible for copyright clearance of the electronic version before its publication in NVA. Publishers usually have specific policies on self-archiving of articles in digital institutional repositories. The University Library checks these policies and applies and embargo period on those parts of the thesis that cannot be made accessible immediately.

Furthermore, an embargo period of 2 years is by default applied to all unpublished manuscripts. The synopsis/"kappa" is made accessible immediately. Authors are welcome to contact us if they want to make the PhD thesis available immediately or after a shorter embargo period. The University Library also links to all published articles.

Monographs

If a PhD candidate has written a monograph without content published elsewhere, the entire thesis can be made accessible in NVA. In case the PhD candidate plans to publish the monograph as a book, he/she should first check with the publisher whether it is allowed to make the thesis openly accessible prior to publication. Some publishers find that access to the thesis in an open repository makes good PR, whilst others require that the thesis is not available online prior to publication. By default, the University Library sets an embargo period of 4 years on monographs; the abstract is made available immediately. Authors are welcome to contact us if they want to make the PhD thesis available immediately or after a shorter embargo period.

How to self-archive PhD theses in NVA?

PhD theses are self-archived arccording to the following procedure:

1. Log into NVA and find the entry of your thesis. If you have not yet registered your thesis in NVA, you will have to do this first (see instructions on how to register a PhD thesis in NVA)
2. Tap the pencil in the top right to edit the result.
3. Choose the tab “File, licence and link”
4. Choose "Open file" and “General terms of use”.
5. Upload the right version of the thesis (the print shop's PDF).
6. The University Library receives the uploaded full-text for further processing. Generally, a default embargo (see above) is set on unpublished parts of your thesis, but you are welcome to contact us if you want your thesis to be made openly available immediately. Embargoes are set according to the university’s PhD regulations § 17-3 (in Norwegian only), both for compilation theses and monographs. The aim is for you to have the possibility of publishing any prior unpublished material at a later stage; moreover, some publishers require an embargo on publishing (applies to compilation theses only). According to the PhD regulations, all PhD candidates who graduated from January 2021 onwards must deposit their PhD theses in NVA.

If you do not have access to NVA, please contact the user support curator at your faculty.