Dispensation from consultation offers you the means to a) extend the embargo applied to your work b) embargo specific content in your thesis from public release.
You should apply for dispensation from consultation for all or part(s) of your digital thesis (and possibly also the print version) if:
Dispensation from consultation can be applied for by completing form GSO.3C (http://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/graduate/progression). NOTE: ORA staff do not make the decisions with regards to the granting of dispensation, the decision is taken by the appropriate department and Graduate Studies Committee.
Dispensation will always be granted i) where confidentiality has been made a condition of access to material which is subsequently incorporated in a thesis, and also ii) as regards digital copies where copyright is held by a third party and permission to disseminate it via the internet has not been granted by the copyright holder.
The restriction can be applied to the entire thesis or only to one or more sections of it. It may in extreme cases apply to the abstract - the extent of the restriction has to specifically applied for.
If you think your thesis should be subject to restricted access, you should check with your supervisor and read the information about copyright and pre-publication concerns.
It is possible to indicate a period of restricted access for your thesis when depositing it in ORA. This embargo can be applied to all or a part of the thesis. ORA staff will check any indication of embargo with central records.
Different extents of dispensation from consultation
NOTE: Being granted dispensation from consultation does not remove the requirement to archive the full and final thesis in ORA, it simply provides authorisation to disseminate an alternative version (with certain content redacted) or extend the embargo.
ORA staff are notified of successful applications for dispensation from consultation in an email sent from the Research Degrees team to the ORA inbox.
Modifications for which applying for dispensation from consultation is not required
In cases where a publisher-formatted article has been included in the thesis but we can't make this available online, it is acceptable for us/the student to replace this with the author-formatted version without requiring the student to apply for dispensation from consultation. N.B. switching the version should not alter the pagination of the rest of the thesis.
It is acceptable to redact short snippets of sensitive information from a thesis during the review process, e.g. phone numbers and email addresses, without requiring students to apply for dispensation from consultation.
It is acceptable to reword references where this is is required by copyright permissions, without requiring the student to apply for dispensation from consultation.
If you think your thesis should be subject to restricted access (i.e. dispensation from consultation), you should check with your supervisor and where necessary with Research Services. Approval for dispensation from consultation should be sought at the time of submission of your thesis for examination by completion of forms GSO3A and GSO3C which are available from the Graduate Office. When depositing your thesis in ORA, it is also necessary to indicate any such requirement to restrict access to your thesis on the 'files' page of the deposit form or the deposit note field.
ORA staff will check any indication of embargo with central records
If you need to appeal an outcome from application for dispensation, the usual route of appeals would be firstly via the Degree Graduate Supervisor.
Oxford University Research Archive (ORA) is an institutional repository for the University of Oxford and is home to the scholarly output of its research members. It holds publications, theses and research data.
Contact us at: ora@bodleian.ox.ac.uk, on: (01865) (2)83809, or via our contact form.
NOTICE: Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic ORA services are working partly in-office and partly remotely. Please use the contact us form or email ora@bodleian.ox.ac.uk directly. Phones may be unmanned.