Delayed public access, commonly known as an “embargo,” postpones public distribution of the thesis or dissertation that has been approved and filed with the university. In some cases, it may be reasonable and appropriate to put in place an embargo that delays public release, but only in narrowly prescribed circumstances affecting intellectual property rights (such as when a patent is being filed), to satisfy requirements for the review of grant-sponsored research, to allow time for the submission of content to a peer-reviewed journal, or for potential consideration of content by an academic or commercial press. Such an embargo must be limited in time.

If delayed public access is necessary due to the purposes set forth in the previous paragraph, a graduate student should select this option when uploading the thesis or dissertation to ProQuest, and a completed and signed Request for Embargo (Delayed Release) of Thesis and Dissertation form should be submitted to the Graduate School.

The delayed release requested at the time of submission will postpone public distribution of/access to a thesis or dissertation via both ProQuest and the University at Buffalo’s institutional repository (UBIR). Students may request embargoes for up to one year or two years, with longer time periods considered by exception. If a delayed release is approved, ProQuest and UBIR will display only the graduate’s citation and abstract for the duration of the embargo. The full text of the graduate’s thesis or dissertation will become available for public access only after the embargo expires. The UB Libraries will archive and preserve the manuscript in perpetuity.

Exception Requests for Extended Embargoes

Under rare circumstances and prior to the filing of the thesis or dissertation, the dean of the Graduate School may approve requests for embargoes beyond the two-year limit. A request for such an exception to UB policy should be made as soon as the graduate student’s master’s or doctoral committee is aware of the need to do so.

The Graduate School is the first point of contact for exception requests. The graduate student and their major advisor must submit a formal request for a time-delimited extended embargo using the Request for Embargo (Delayed Release) of Thesis and Dissertation form available from the Graduate School. The request must be made prior to filing the thesis or dissertation.  Each request will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. The Graduate School’s review of such requests will take the following factors into consideration:

• Are there serious mitigating circumstances whereby publication of the thesis or dissertation would cause undue risks or potential harm to the author or subjects?
• Will the data generated through the student’s research support other in-progress publications from people on the student’s research team, which could be impacted by public dissemination?
• Is the student applying for a patent based on research that is discussed in their dissertation?
• Is the data or material in the thesis or dissertation subject to review by the sponsor or grantor prior to publication?
• Is there a need to prevent disclosure of information about persons, institutions, technologies, etc.?
• Is there an academic or commercial press that has documented its requirement of manuscript embargo in order to acquire the rights to publish the thesis or dissertation as a book?

When an exception request is approved by the Graduate School, the library will be notified to ensure that UBIR suppresses access until the end of the approved extended embargo period.

Post-Submission Requests for Delayed Public Access

Students who wish to delay public access must select this option at the time they submit their theses or dissertations to the Graduate School via ProQuest. Requests to embargo a thesis or dissertation after the manuscript has been filed generally are not allowed. Post-submission embargo requests to the UBIR are permissible only in exceptional circumstances and require Graduate School review and approval.

Procedure

The Graduate School is the first point of contact for post-submission embargo requests to the UBIR. To make such a request, which is considered only for exceptional circumstances, the graduate student must submit a Request for Embargo (Delayed Release) of Thesis and Dissertation form to the Graduate School detailing the reason for the request for an embargo and the reason for the delay in seeking the embargo, and including an explanatory letter from the thesis or dissertation committee chair.  Each request will be reviewed on a case-by- case basis.

ProQuest allows graduate students to embargo their manuscripts at any time and for any duration, but cautions that “the rules and policies around dissemination related to a university’s institutional repositories are created and managed separately by the university”.*

ProQuest will notify UB’s Graduate School of each request for a post-submission embargo. Upon receiving the notification from ProQuest, the Graduate School will send an email to the graduate student reminding them of the university policy restricting delayed release. The Graduate School will approve of such post-submission requests in accordance with the procedure set forth below for review of post-submission requests.

Review of Post-Submission Embargo Requests

The review of a post-submission embargo request by the Graduate School will take the following factors into consideration:

• Are there serious mitigating circumstances such that publication of the thesis or dissertation would cause undue risks or potential harm to the author or subjects?
• Is there a need to prevent disclosure of information about persons, institutions, technologies, etc.?
• Is there good cause for the failure to seek delayed public dissemination at the time of submission?
• Is the work already accessible via UBIR?

In the rare cases in which a post-submission embargo request is approved by the Graduate School, the Graduate School will notify the library and UBIR to withhold release for the approved embargo period.

*ProQuest, Embargoes and Restrictions