Nancy Gray Schoonmaker, a recent Ph.D. graduate of the University of North Carolina’s history department, said she was stunned and not at all pleased with UNC as she was nearing the completion of her 700-page dissertation.

“They would not allow me to graduate without giving them the right to give away my dissertation to the general public at no charge,” she said. “In order to have a successful academic career, a Ph.D. in history must have a dissertation that shows promise of becoming a book and publish a second book within a few years of being hired. Since all 720 pages of my work is being given away by UNC, and the economy is sluggish, and library funding is being slashed, I think it severely diminishes my chances of getting a book deal.”

Schoonmaker said that had she been aware that UNC planned to give her work to any and all for no charge, she would have written a very different and much shorter dissertation so she could protect much of her research for future projects.

The University implemented a similar rule beginning in August 2009, which declared that all of the University’s graduate school students were required to post their theses and dissertations online.

Donna Cox Baker, editor of Alabama Heritage magazine, said doctoral students have, in recent years, been advised by faculty to write their dissertation like a book, which allowed new Ph.D.s to approach an academic press with a book manuscript that was nearly ready for the market.

“Having a book deal as you started your job search was a great asset, since publishing a book is going to be critical to getting tenure in humanities and other similar fields,” she said. “But today, the dissertation might be the one manuscript you can’t sell.”

According to the graduate school’s website, one reason for the change is because it is a good way for students to possibly reduce or eliminate the costs of printing and binding.

“Rather than printing your manuscript dozens of times as you make changes and progress through the various stages of review, you will be able simply to make corrections to the electronic file, convert the final version to a PDF file, and submit that file,” the website states. “Whereas paper copies can spend months waiting to be bound and distributed, your electronic document can be available much more quickly and, if you so choose, to a much wider audience.”

Cox Baker said it was important to bring awareness to the new requirement because an awareness of the changing winds in the publishing field will help graduate students make the best choices and understand the possible repercussions.

“The mandatory publication of dissertations through the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database can have great benefits to scholarly research, but it has created a problem for academic presses,” Cox Baker said. “Libraries are one of their biggest sales markets, but as libraries tighten their belts financially, they have begun to reduce their expenditures for new books. In the past, a new book was often a rehashing of a dissertation. But now that most dissertations are available through ProQuest, libraries see the new book as a duplication of material they already have available—therefore dispensable.”

Despite the recent changes, Cox Baker said there were still ways for students to protect themselves and their research, such as choosing to embargo, or restricting access to the work.

“Students who already have a dissertation near completion can protect themselves in a limited way by choosing to embargo their dissertation for two years,” she said. “But they need to keep in mind that it can take two years for a press to turn their manuscript into a book and get it to market. This means that their dissertation will show up online at about the same time their books shows up for sale. Academic presses will have to take this into consideration as they decide whether to publish your work.

“For students who are in the early phases of their doctoral work or dissertation planning, it’s a good idea to talk to your advisors about creating a dissertation that doesn’t give away everything you have to say about a subject.”