The main concern of the DARE “Promise of Science” project is the acquisition of dissertations. The project involved extensive investigation of how to promote this. One aspect of the investigation dealt with “good practices” at Dutch university institutions. The thinking here is that good practices can contribute to ensuring that dissertations are freely available.
Examples of good practices regarding copyright or PhD regulations include:
- Including a provision in the university’s PhD regulations to the effect that dissertations must be digitally accessible, with monitoring of compliance with that provision.
- Having PhD candidates sign a non-exclusive licence giving the university the right to make their dissertation digitally accessible via a repository.
- Incorporating exceptions into the above licence, i.e. specification of the circumstances under which a PhD candidate is not required to comply with this obligation
The report by the Promise of Science project group (see below) includes a table of existing good practices at Dutch universities.
>> Download the table (in Dutch)
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