On March 25, 2020, the University of California issued a Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations. The systemwide policy, which aligns with those already in place at individual UC campuses, “requires theses or dissertations prepared at the University to be (1) deposited into an open access repository, and (2) freely and openly available to the public, subject to a requested delay of access (“embargo”) obtained by the student.” Theses and dissertations already made open access can be read in eScholarship, UC’s open access repository and scholarly publishing platform.
With this policy, “the University affirms the long-standing tradition that theses and dissertations, which represent significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge and the scholarly record, should be shared with scholars in all disciplines and the general public.”
Each campus graduate division retains the authority, as articulated by the policy, to determine procedures for thesis and dissertation filing locally, as well as policies for embargoes. Links to campus graduate division information about theses and dissertations can be found on the Open Access Theses & Dissertations page of this site.
The policy’s issuance follows two periods of systemwide review, one in 2017 and one in 2019, as described in earlier OSC blog posts:
- Comment on proposed UC-wide OA policy for dissertations and theses before April 10, March 11, 2019
- Proposed Presidential Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations, December 7, 2017
Read more about Open Access Theses & Dissertations at UC.
