So, you’re ready to finish your thesis…

The time has come. You’ve done the research; you’ve written the dissertation. You’re gearing up to defend your work and your right to scholarly achievement.

But wait: in addition to some last-minute citation formatting, there’s one more box you need to tick as you finalize your manuscript. You need to clear permissions.

What are permissions?

Every good scholar knows how to cite her sources. But in cases where someone else’s work is directly copied or quoted at length– even with an accurate citation – you may need a license that grants you the legal right to reproduce another person’s intellectual property.

The reuse of intellectual property is protected by law. Content creators need to formally request permission to republish or otherwise reuse existing content in new works. This applies to all types of new content, including theses and dissertations. Make sure that you review your manuscript for any quoted content, third-party charts or graphs, and other elements that you have incorporated from existing intellectual property.

When a citation is not enough

Visual content (photographs, videos, images, tables, or charts) will almost always require a formal request for permission in addition to citation. Quoted or excerpted text is less straightforward, and legal requirements differ between countries and regions.

If you’re unsure about the legal requirements for permissions clearance in your country, or about your institution’s policies, check with your institution’s library for resources and guidance.

Wanted: rights holder

Once you’ve identified the content that will need a reuse license, you’ll need to submit requests to the rights holder of each piece of intellectual property and ask them to grant permission for you to use this content in your work.

The rights holder could be the author or the publisher of the content. The rights holder will be specified in the copyright line of a publication. You can also find rights holder information by searching through the Copyright Clearance Center.

Reusing Wiley content

If you’re reusing Wiley content in your thesis or dissertation, rights will be granted at no cost to you if the content meets these requirements:

• Your thesis or dissertation is not being used for commercial purposes. This means that you’re submitting it only for graduation requirements. You don’t currently have a deal with a commercial publisher, and you won’t otherwise be benefitting financially from the publication of your thesis.
   
• Wiley is the rights holder of the content you are seeking to reuse. Usually, Wiley holds the rights to our content, but occasionally the rights holder will be an author or sponsoring organization. In those cases, Wiley cannot guarantee free reuse.

While Wiley does grant free reuse of content in thesis and dissertation projects, we do still require a record of use so that we can issue you a license agreement.

If you publish your thesis or dissertation through a commercial publisher in the future, you will need to reapply for commercial reuse licenses. The legal rights granted for content reuse in non-commercial publications, such as a thesis or dissertation, are different from the rights required by commercial publishers to legally republish third-party content.

Do I need to request permission to use my own work as my dissertation?

If you are the author of a published Wiley article, you have the right to reuse the full text of your published article as part of your thesis or dissertation. In this situation, you do not need to request permission from Wiley for this use.

If your institution still requires a reuse license in this case, follow the steps below to request your license via RightsLink.

Request permission from Wiley

To request a reuse license, our partner RightsLink is a great place to start. You can request thesis and dissertation permissions through RightsLink Marketplace.

You can also find a link to a RightsLink permissions request form at the point of content on Wiley Online Library. Watch the video below to see how.

More information about requesting permissions for content reuse from Wiley can be found on our Rights & Permissions portal.

We wish you the best on your research journey!