The directive is issued based on subsection 23 (6) of the Academic Policies established by Regulation No 6 of 17 December 2018 of the Senate of Tallinn University of Technology.
1. General provisions
1.1 These Rules apply to publication and preservation of graduation thesis submitted for applying for professional higher education diplomas, bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees (hereinafter graduation theses) at TalTech.
1.2 The non-exclusive licence (Annex 1 to the Rules) forms part of a student’s graduation thesis. The non-exclusive license must be submitted in one file together with the electronic version of the thesis (in PDF format) and this is one of the prerequisites for allowing the author to defend his/her thesis and ensuring the protection of his/her copyright. The non-exclusive licence does not require a signature.
1.3 The author of a thesis is liable for ensuring that the publication of the graduation thesis does not infringe other persons’ rights arising from specific legislation regulating the field of intellectual property, the Personal Data Protection Act, the Copyright Act and other legislation.
1.4 The author of a graduation thesis can submit an application for establishing restrictions on the publication of the thesis in cases prescribed by law.
2. Publication of graduation theses
2.1 The employee appointed in accordance with the school’s internal procedures shall publish the graduation thesis that has no access restrictions and that has been given a positive grade, including the multimedia files (audio, visual or audiovisual recordings) that form part of the thesis, in the digital collection of the library immediately after the defence of the thesis.
2.2 If it is not possible to publish the graduation thesis because the economic rights of the author belong to another person or the thesis contains personal data, state secret, classified information of foreign states or any other classified information, the student shall apply for restriction on access to the graduation thesis in compliance with the procedure established at the school.
2.3 If access to the graduation thesis is restricted, only the abstract of the graduation thesis is published during the validity period of the restriction.
2.4 The author of a graduation thesis with restricted access shall prepare an abstract, which shall appear after the front page of the title page. An abstract shall include the name of the author and the title of the graduation thesis. An abstract must not contain confidential aspects of the thesis.
2.5 A graduation thesis with restricted access shall be published in the digital collection of the library immediately after expiry of the restriction.
3. Preservation of graduation theses
3.1 TalTech ensures the preservation and availability of the electronic version of the graduation theses.
4. Implementing provisions
4.1 The Procedure for Publication and Preservation of Graduation Thesis approved by Rector’s directive No 60 of 27.02.2014 is repealed.
4.2 This directive shall enter into force on 1 October 2020.