Publishing a thesis in NTNU Open means making the thesis and any attachments openly available. The thesis will be searchable, viewable and available for download. NTNU encourage all students to publish their thesis, as a contribution to NTNUs open research.

The three requirements for being able to publish your thesis are:

1. You need to recieve a passing grade (E and above)
2. Your thesis does not contain any confidential information. Information about this is included further down on this page
3. You choose whether you want to publish your thesis and attachments Inspera. You can find information about how you deliver a theis in Inspera by following this link

   • Note that the meta data (title, abstract, author(s), supervisor(s), and language) will be published regardless of your choice to publish.

• The publishing agreement is an agreement between the student and NTNU about the publication of a thesis
• Signing the agreement is done as a part of submitting the thesis in Inspera Assessment. I.e., the answer you give in Inspera to the question about publication of your thesis counts as approval of the curret publishing agreement.
• The current version of the publishing agreement is version 1.0, and it can be downloaded here.

• A thesis is viewed as intellectual property, thus the students have copyright to their own work. Therefore, it is up to the student to decide whether the thesis should be published or not. Read more about copyright to student work by following this link. The right to choose whether the thesis is published or not is up to the student for an unlimited time period. Information about how to change the publishing agreement is included at the bottom of this page.
• NTNU encourage all students to publish their theses, as a contribution to NTNUs open research. In addition, it gives the student easy access to the thesis, and allows the student to distribute to friends, family and other interested parties.

• Delayed publication of a thesis involves postponing the publication. Delayed publication can be agreed upon through the master's agreement, or in the standard agreement on cooperation with an external organization. It is possible to have full or partial postponement, with a maximum duration of three years. The need for delayed publication must be justified.

• If your thesis has delayed publication, the abstract will not be published until the planned date of publication. In place of the abstract, the following text will be visible: "Abstract will be available on YYYY-mm-dd". Please be aware that the other metadata will be published even if publication of the thesis is postponed.

• Delayed publication is registered in Inspera Assessment by the department administration. It is important that decisions regarding delayed publication are made in agreement with the department.

• Common reasons for delayed publication are if the thesis is intended for later work on publication or higher degree, or in order to collaborate with a company working in this area in a competitive market.

Note! Delayed publishing can be registered in Inspera until the thesis is automatically published. This means that delayed publishing has to be registered a few days after grading is made available to the student. If it is necessary to register delayed publishing after the thesis is published contact the university library. Contact the publishing group at the library here.

In most cases a student thesis should be submitted in Inspera Assessment. However, if the information in the thesis could be classified as confidential or strictly confidential, the thesis must not be submitted in Inspera. NTNU has a classification system for identifying confidential or strictly confidential material. Unfortunately, it is only avilable in Norwegian. Contact your supervisor, and/or department if you suspect that your thesis may fall under this classification. Examples include, but are not limited to, having personal information or state secrets as part of your thesis.

• Why isn't my thesis published yet?
  • The time of publication is determined by the time the grade is announced, the deadlines for explanations and/or appeals, as well as any registrations regarding delayed publication. The system checks regularly if the thesis is ready for publication.
  • If you have submitted a thesis in a course where multiple parts are part of the assessment, e.g. a thesis and an oral defence, you may experience problems regarding publication. Contact your department if you believe this to be reason your thesis hasn't been published yet.

Contact your department. They will find information about how to help with your particular case in the Norwegian version of this user guide. It's not translated as the information only applies to administrative staff, not students.