What you need before you deposit

Research publications such as preprints, post-prints, working papers, technical reports, conference papers, and other intellectual outputs may be submitted to MSpace. Please ensure the following before submitting your research publication to MSpace:

• If applicable, that you (the depositor) have agreement from all co-creators of the work to deposit it in MSpace.
• That you have the information required to complete the MSpace submission form, including the persistent identifier (e.g., DOI, handle, URI) of the published work if available. See Depositing Research Publications Step by Step for the full list of fields included in the submission form.
• That your submission complies with your publication agreement and publisher policies. This may involve placing an embargo on your submission, depositing a different version of your article, or contacting the publisher or journal for permission. Review your publishing agreement (or copyright transfer agreement) or learn about a publisher's policies in the JISC Open Policy Finder, Shareyourpaper.org, or the publisher’s/journal’s website in their information for authors. 

• The thesis/practicum must be compiled into one electronic document for submission.
• You must confirm you can use any third-party copyright protected materials in your MSpace submission under permission, a license, or copyright exemption as applicable. See Copyright support for students and review the “Copyright in thesis or practicum” section, particularly the Copyright and Your Thesis/Practicum slides.
• If your thesis/practicum requires a publication delay (embargo), prior permission from Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS) is required. To request permission, complete and submit the embargo request form to FGS before submitting your thesis to MSpace. Additional details are included in the copyright and permissions section below.
• If you have created supplementary materials that are to accompany your thesis, please review what you can deposit to help determine whether the materials may be included in your thesis in MSpace or in another repository. See also the Content Deposit Guidelines.

Depositing theses or practica step by step

Copyright and permissions

When you deposit your work in MSpace, you do not transfer copyright ownership of that work to the university; you retain your creator rights (also known as moral rights). In order for your work to be deposited, you are required to agree to one of the MSpace copyright licenses. If you are submitting a research publication, you will be prompted agree to the the MSpace Copyright Distribution License. If you are submitting your thesis or practicum, you will be prompted agree to the the MSpace Thesis/Practicum Copyright License. If the work has multiple authors/creators, you are required to obtain you co-creators’ permission before depositing the work in MSpace. Please also ensure that you can use any third-party copyright protected materials included in your MSpace submission under permission, a license, or copyright exemption as applicable.

MSpace and Generative AI

MSpace currently does not have any automated mechanism to prevent AI harvesting or selectively identify use preference i.e. distinguish between discovery harvesting (e.g. Google Scholar) from harvesting for AI machine learning. You can indicate your use preferences by stating your rights retentions in your material however: see the Faculty of Graduate Studies Artificial Intelligence Training Statement and insert this language into your thesis (ideally the cover page). Authors are encouraged to be consistent with their rights retention preferences by ensuring these preferences are reflected in any publication agreement that contains material from your thesis. For more information on AI, rights retention and the current dynamic legal state of defending these rights, see the  Generative AI page of the Copyright Office. 

UM Copyright Office

Access rights in MSpace

One of the fields included in the MSpace submission form is the “access rights” field, which governs when your work becomes open online in MSpace. The default “access rights” option is the open option, which makes your submission immediately available online without restriction once it is accepted for deposit. If the “open” access right cannot be applied to the work, then you can select the “embargo” access right option. Access to the work will then be delayed from the time of deposit until the release date, or “Date of Availability,” which you can select in your MSpace submission form. Please note that prior approval from the Faculty of Graduate studies is required in order for a thesis/practicum to have an embargo. 

Withdrawal requests

Requests for withdrawal of MSpace materials will be managed in accordance with the MSpace Digital Repository Mandate and Policy. Withdrawing an item from MSpace will not account for potentially available cached or harvested copies that may be available elsewhere on the internet. 

Additional resources

• Author Rights
• Self-Archiving