Submitting your final eThesis

It is common practice both in the UK and internationally to deposit your thesis in an open access repository, making it available to a wide audience. 

All postgraduate researchrs (PGRs) must submit their successful thesis for retention in the University Library in White Rose eTheses Online (WREO). The University has withdrawn the requirement to submit a hard bound copy of your final, corrected thesis. Please see our Guide to the thesis examination process for more detailed information. You should only upload after your internal examiner has approved the correction of any editorial and presentational corrections or minor deficiencies identified at your examination.  You should upload your final eThesis directly to White Rose eTheses Online. Please see the Library website for further advice on the upload process. 

eThesis format

One complete PDF eThesis file MUST be supplied as follows:

  • This must be a single PDF file of the final, corrected thesis approved by your internal examiner for the award of your degree (including all appendices).
  • On opening the file the first page accessed should be the title page of the thesis.
  • The ethesis should be given a standard filename: Surname & initials, school, degree, year of submission, for example: Smith_ABC_Chemistry_PhD_2020.PDF.

Please note that the filename will be visible to anyone accessing your eThesis through WREO. For this reason it is important that you follow the filename format given here and do not include other information in the filename (for example your 9 digit student ID number).

To help ensure longer-term digital preservation of your thesis, it is strongly recommended that you also provide your thesis in its original source file format (e.g. Word, LaTex). The PDF file is the version of your thesis that will be made live in WREO and accessible by users, after any embargo period has expired. 

If you are a practice-led researcher your eThesis will comprise both the written commentary and the related practice material.  You must upload both the written commentary (as a single PDF file) and all the practice material in appropriate electronic files (for example pdf, jpeg, mp3) to White Rose eTheses Online. Please refer to your Faculty’s Practice-led Protocol for further advice.

Restricting access to your eThesis

Wherever possible, theses should be made ‘open access’. However in some cases immediate access to a thesis may not be possible and you might need to add a temporary embargo. Examples include where the thesis includes confidential or politically-sensitive information; where the thesis includes commercially-sensitive information or where you are planning to publish part of your thesis. Access to the full text of your thesis can normally be restricted for one, two, three, or five years. In the case of a patent pending or in other exceptional circumstances, it may be possible to embargo your thesis for longer. If you think this might be necessary you should consult with your Supervisor. A case must be made by your Director of PGR Studies to the Examinations Group.

Decisions on whether an embargo is required and how long is appropriate should be taken in consultation with your supervisor(s). Therefore, before you upload your eThesis you must discuss the retention of thesis arrangements with your supervisor(s). Please see our Guide to the thesis examination process for more detailed information.

If an embargo is placed on the thesis, certain data will still be visible in the University Library catalogue and in WREO, including your name, thesis title and the abstract of your thesis. However the full text of your thesis will not be accessible until after the expiry of the embargo period. Please see our Guide to the thesis examination process for more detailed information. An extension to the embargo period or lifting an embargo early normally needs the agreement of your supervisor(s). 

The University recommends that you make your thesis available using a Creative Commons licence. The recommended licence is Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike, but there are six licences to choose from. You can find further information about each on the Library pages.

Copyright permissions & redacted eTheses

Please consult the Library website for further advice on copyrighted material. You can also contact copyright@leeds.ac.uk with any questions. You are expected to make all reasonable efforts to seek permission to include third party copyright material in the electronic version of your thesis. However, if you've not been able to obtain the permission of the copyright holder, you must prepare two versions of your eThesis:

  • eThesis 1 - A “complete eThesis” - a single file including the final, corrected content  of your thesis (as approved by your examiners).
  • eThesis 2 – A “redacted eThesis” file with any third party copyright material redacted and replaced with a statement such as "This image has been removed by the author of this thesis for copyright reasons”. If possible, when removing material from the digital copy, a placeholder should be included to retain the pagination of the original document.

In all cases one complete eThesis file MUST be supplied and held by the University but will not be made available online.