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Student Scholarship in SOAR (Scholarly Open Access Repository)

Information about submitting your electronic thesis, dissertation or capstone or project in the Scholarly Open Access Repository (SOAR) at USI.

Understanding Embargoes

What is an Embargo?

Most thesis or dissertations are not embargoed, but are made publicly available. An embargo is a restriction that is is placed on a thesis or dissertation that only allows the title, abstract, and citation information to made public, while the full-text abstract is hidden for a limited amount of time. Upon the expiration of the embargo period, the full text of your dissertation will be accessible to the public.

Why Embargo?

Some reasons to embargo your thesis or dissertation: 

  • The thesis or dissertation includes data covered by a nondisclosure agreement for a specified period of time, including personal information, company secrets, or intellectual property.
  • The author wants to patent something described in the work.
  • The author want to publish the work in whole or part in the future and is concerned that making the work public will interfere with that.
  • The author has previously published the work in whole or in part, and the publisher has restricting public release of the work.