On your ETD Approval Form, as well as in ProQuest and the Duquesne Scholarship Collection, you will need to choose whether to release your work immediately for access worldwide, or delay release (“embargo”) for one year. If you choose to embargo your work, you must select the appropriate reason for your embargo: Publishing in process, Patenting in progress, or Copyright permissions pending.
An embargo is a delay of the release of the full-text of a thesis or dissertation for a specified amount of time. During the embargo period, no one will have access to the full-text of the work; however, access to the title and abstract will be available. In light of the value that Duquesne places on the dissemination of new knowledge, and the importance of publication of your thesis or dissertation as evidence of the quality of your scholarship, the maximum time period a thesis or dissertation can be withheld from the institutional repository is one year. The availability decision is final and cannot be changed following ETD approval.
The Scholarly Communications Librarian will contact you before your embargo expires. Should you wish to extend it, you will need to provide the appropriate documentation; extensions will only be granted for a work that is in the final stages of preparation for publication, as documented by a publication contract or patent filing. (This only applies to the Duquesne Scholarship Collection; you will need to contact ProQuest for an embargo extension in their databases.)
