The reproduction of graphs, table, charts, drawings, photographs and other visual aids usually requires written permission from the copyright holder, which is most often the journal or publisher.
Are you planning to use the alternative format for your thesis or dissertation in which you insert previously published articles? If so, you will need to consult the journal or publisher website to determine if that is allowed. Here are two examples of journals that DO allow authors to reproduce articles in your thesis or dissertation:
The answer to this depends on where your dissertation will be published. As a student from Augusta University your thesis or dissertation will be published with ProQuest and with Scholarly Commons. UMI Dissertation Publishing (a division of ProQuest) is a commercial publisher. Your work will be made available to other institutions through library subscription databases. Scholarly Commons is an institutional repository and not a commercial publisher. Here your works will be restricted to the Augusta University campus and affiliate access.
From ProQuest:
Including material produced by other authors in your dissertation or thesis can serve a legitimate research purpose, but you want to avoid copyright infringement in the process. Republishing someone else's work, even in abbreviated form, requires permission from the author or copyright owner. You must receive permission from the author(s) and include it with your submission before we can publish it in your dissertation or thesis.
See ProQuest's Copyright Guide for further details about their copyright policies.
If you are not the original creator then the work is probably under copyright. Some exceptions, such as works that have fallen into public domain, may be the exception. Your own work, if it has been published, may also be under publisher copyright. The table below from Kenneth Crews's book, Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis: Ownership, Fair Use, and Your Rights and Responsibilities, may help you determine if the material you wish to use is copyrighted.
|
Creation/Publication of the Work |
General Rule of Duration |
|
Created in or after 1978 by a named author acting in an individual capacity, whether published or not. |
Life of the author, plus 70 years. |
|
Created in or after 1978 by an anonymous or pseudoymous author, or by a corporate author, or as a work-made-for-hire. |
The earlier of either 95 years from publication, or 120 years from creation. |
|
Created before 1978, but not published. |
Life of the author, plus 70 years. The expiration date is extended through December 31, 2047, if the work had been published by the copyright owner before the end of 2002. |
|
Published after 1922 and before 1978 with a copyright notice and renewed if required. |
Ninety-five years from the date of original publications. |
|
Published in the U.S. before 1923. |
Copyright has expired. |
No, this is self-plagiarism. The American Psychological Association’s manual states: “Just as researchers do not present the work of others as their own (plagiarism), they do not present their own previously published work as new scholarship (self-plagiarism).”
Source: Publication Manual of the American Psychological, 6th ed. (Washington, D.C., American Psychological Association,2010), 1.10, p. 15–16.
1. Identify the copyright holder.
2. Request permission.
3. Keep a record.
For assistance in determining the copyright holder of images, figures, or articles and requesting permission contact Sandra Bandy sbandy@augusta.edu or (706) 721-0299.
Yes, here are some additional resources to help you make decisions regarding copyrighted materials and your thesis or dissertation.
Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis: Ownership, Fair Use, and Your Rights and Responsibilities by Kenneth D. Crews, J.D., Ph.D. Licensed to the public under a Creative Commons BY-NC license.
Some journals consider your thesis or dissertation a previous publication while other journal do not. For example, the American Chemical Society has published a Policy on Theses and Dissertations that states that "students and their mentors should be aware that posting of theses and dissertation material on the Web prior to submission of material from that thesis or dissertation to an ACS journal may affect publication in that journal. Whether Web posting is considered prior publication may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis by the journal’s editor. If an ACS journal editor considers Web posting to be “prior publication”, the paper will not be accepted for publication in that journal. If you intend to submit your unpublished paper to ACS for publication, check with the appropriate editor prior to posting your manuscript electronically.”
However, not all publishers follow the same guidelines as the American Chemical Society. Be sure to the individual journal's website to determine if your thesis or dissertation can be submitted as an article. The MIT Libraries’ Office of Scholarly Publishing, Copyright & Licensing maintains a list of publisher policies regarding accepting journal submissions that first appeared in a graduate student's previously released thesis.
Resources
McMillan, G., Ramirez, M.L., Dalton, J., Read, M., & Seamans, N.H. (2011). An investigation of ETDs as prior publications: Findings from the 2011 NDLTD Publishers’ Survey. Paper presented at the 14th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Cape Town, South Africa. http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/univ_lib_facpub/53/
Embargo--used to describe a delayed release or delayed availability of scholarly work. Reasons for embargoing work may include patents pending, sensitive data or pending publication.
Open Access--Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
ProQuest--a publishing service for theses and dissertations. The theses and dissertations databases have been designated as a Library of Record by the U.S. Library of Congress and will be kept in perpetuity.
Institutional Repository--Clifford Lynch has defined institutional repositories as “a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members.”
For a complete list of common definitions see The United States Thesis and Dissertations Association ETD Terms and Definitions