Thursday, April 5, 2018

How to Extend a Master's Thesis Embargo


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A former MS research student of mine found himself in the predicament of wanting to publish his MS thesis work, but were unable to because their material was posted on the web via ProQuest.  He had inadvertently lost track of the time needed for embargoing their MS theses to allow for publication in peer-reviewed journals. 

It was discovered that his hard-earned data and analysis was posted without password protection, and freely available to all on the web by third parties, e.g., 'Semantic Scholar'.  This is one repository that adds material from ProQuest with the use of Artificially Intelligent program to capture such material for archival.

Fortunately, there is a way to undo some of this premature posting.  What do you do toextend the embargo so you can publish/patent your thesis research?

Step 1: First, contact ProQuest to extend your embargo.  Note that it is possible to request an indefinite embargo.  You should contact them again when you are ready for ProQuest to disseminate your thesis.

Step 2: Contact 'Semantic Scholar' using their "Feedback" box found using the 'Contact' button on the upper right-hand corner of their webpage to send a message.  Include your email address in the message box to ensure you get a response.  You might write something like...

Dear Semantic Scholar:

I am writing to you regarding my posted master’s thesis on your web site:
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/...(remainder of hotlink)

It is on your site as a result of its release from ProQuest, which I have now embargoed for purposes of potential future patent of the technology contained in the work therein. Since public display of this thesis would hamper my efforts for patenting, I request that you remove it from display on your web site.

Sincerely yours,

My student made this request when he discovered a premature posting of his thesis.  Within the next day or so, he received the following response:

We have removed this paper from our site per your request; the PDF itself should disappear within one week. Please be aware though that it can take a bit longer (up to a few weeks) for the change to be reflected on all parts of our system and on other sites like Google Scholar.

We appreciate your patience.

Semantic Scholar Team

This entire exchange took place within 48-to-72 hours.  After this email interaction, my student was finally able to move forward with completing and preparing the manuscript for peer-reviewed publication.