Once you have completed any required amendments to your thesis and received formal notification of your examination outcome, you must submit your final thesis to the Graduate Research School before your degree can be conferred and you can graduate.
Lodgement requirements
For most thesis formats, submit a single PDF file. If your thesis includes a creative work and exegesis, you will need to submit two separate PDF files - one for each component.
You must also submit a Thesis Information for the Library form with your thesis. Any third-party materials included in the thesis should be declared on the Thesis Information for Library form and copyright clearance for each item indicated on the Third-Party Copyright Clearance Form, including documentation of any permissions or licences acquired.
Your final thesis will be made publicly available through the University’s digital research repository and will be harvested and discoverable in external search engines and aggregators, unless you have arranged for an embargo due to ethical, privacy or confidentiality reasons.
For more information, refer to the University’s Open Access Procedure.
Copyright and publishing considerations
All third-party materials included in your thesis will require copyright clearance, including quotations, figures, diagrams, illustrations, photographs, musical notation and audio-visual material. Third-party materials are essentially anything that you did not create yourself. Self-authored material that has been published may also be treated as third party if it was co-authored or the rights have been transferred to a publisher.
It is good practice to consider copyright clearances before including each third-party material in your thesis to avoid any hurdles at the submission stage.
Copyright clearances should be itemised on the Third-Party Copyright Clearance Form. See the Copyright for Research & Publishing webpage for more information on copyright clearances or contact the Copyright Coordinator.
Except where copyright is owned by others, copyright ownership of the thesis remains with you as the author.
Also refer to the copyright guidance in the Conduct of Research section of the Graduate Research Handbook.
Publishing your thesis
Publishing your thesis online is considered a form of publication. Be aware that some publishers and conference hosts may have self-plagiarism or text-recycling policies in place and might consider your thesis on our Adelaide Research & Scholarship platform or elsewhere online, to be a prior publication.
If you have an existing agreement with a publisher or research partner, check whether online publication affects your rights. If your thesis includes published papers, you may need to review your publication agreements or seek permission to include them in the University’s repository.
Once your work is accepted for publication, it is recommended to avoid assigning or exclusively licensing the copyright, otherwise, you may find that you need to obtain permission from the publisher to reuse your own work in future projects. See the Copyright for Research & Publishing webpage for further tips on publishing agreements.
You do not need permission from the University to publish your thesis elsewhere, unless it is under embargo.
