Thesis supervisor manual

You can contact the Open Science Centre about issues about saving your thesis to JYX, using pre-existing thesis templates and styles on Word etc.

Opening up a thesis on JYX to the public is easy.

The file usually has a few initial defaults regarding copyright issues, accessibility etc.

• The supposition is, that the thesis student has been able to use their research data according to copyright regulations, e.g., reference policies, so that other people’s rights have not been violated
• The file should also be produced following the Accessibility Directive, meaning that reading the file is as easy as possible for all readers
• Some text and image production basics are involved, e.g., using the style tools in Word, color choices in images, alternative texts in images and charts, and the choice of file format.

Public

Theses are usually publicly available that is, their information is visible. In the University of Jyväskylä, this is often conducted on JYX-repository and JYKDOK database. 

Open

In the University of Jyväskylä thesis are often also open, that is the complete thesis is open online. Opening up a thesis on JYX to the public is easy:

• The thesis file is delivered through an online form to save it on JYX
• Fill in the requested additional information about the thesis and give JYX permission to save it
• If the thesis has to be closed, e.g. due to the sensitivity of its subject, the information about the closure is recorded in the JYX process.

In special cases, due to the topic of the thesis or e.g. the data, the actual thesis cannot be opened. The reason for not opening can be e.g. a topic related to a criminal case that is the subject of an investigation, in which case confidentiality may be necessary. Even in this case, it is worth thinking about how to make the thesis' metadata visible aka public.

Openness is thought to have many advantages:

• The visibility of the work and competence of the student
  • Working life
  • Possibilities for research in the future
  • Accumulating research skills
• Reliability of study results
• Reusability
  • Anyone can use it anywhere
• Societal interaction and communication
• Even the visibility of the supervisor’s expertise?

Openness has many forms, and especially in the case of an article thesis, it is worth discussing with the student different options for openness. More article grading tips below.

Publication

Basic degree thesis are usually not publications but dissertations instead are research publications. In addition to the thesis itself, the process of publishing can include other texts etc. that are considered publications. An article is a publication when talking about an article-based Master’s thesis. However, when practicing research skills, the student might also publish their research data and other material. This was mentioned in the previous section.

A student can also take part in developing open educational resources during the Master’s thesis seminar. In a case like this, should those educational materials also be opened? This means that the student would be a co-creator with their supervisor. If the supervisor has developed the materials mostly independently, they should consider opening the materials, which is one possible characteristic of a good supervisor.

Privacy issues concerning a thesis often arise from the topic at hand. For example, topics about business cooperation and child protection can set boundaries on openness, so that companies or individuals in real life targeted for research can receive the protection needed.

As mentioned before, a Master’s thesis is a public document by default. The writer of the thesis can choose how openly the thesis is shown online when downloading and saving it to JYX. For example, a thesis can be available only on a limited access computer at JYX, if the student wishes to choose so. If the thesis includes private information or other things that are confidential, they can be placed in a separate background document, which is not published on JYX. If the thesis was ordered by a company, the student can also construct a free form document or a presentation that handles the company’s internal affairs and information that would not be handled in a public thesis.

You can open your thesis through University of Jyväskylä’s JYX-publication channel, or in other forms through external publishers. 

Openness has many forms, of which you should discuss with the writer of a thesis. The Open Science Centre also provides help with the various forms of openness. You can ask specific questions or order a separate training for your seminar group. Examples of the forms of openness are

• Golden Open Access
  
  • Publishing channel that is closed (requires a subscription fee) but also where the writer can buy openness for a specific article
  • An open publishing channel
  • Hybrid
• Green Open Access
  
  • Green Open Access
• Black Open Access
  
  • The seamy side of openness, should be avoided
  • The so-called predators should be avoided.

You can open your thesis through University of Jyväskylä’s JYX-publication channel, or in other forms through external publishers. The university and its faculties have their own guidelines on defining a thesis and its contents, and these guidelines can also contain categories for possible publication channels. These kinds of categorizations are also available for article-based Master’s theses. Here are some tips on how to consider different publishing channel for an article-based thesis:

• The focus of the publishing channel
  
  • Getting familiar with the author’s guide
• The readership of the publishing channel: information reaches its potential audience
• The possibility of openness?
  
  • Closed publishing channel → permission to insert an article to a Master’s thesis and open it on JYX?
• Several official – even e.g., numeral – ways of reviewing publishing channels. The channels should be compares and the writer should get familiar with their contexts of use, e.g. 
  
  • Publication Forum (JUFO)
  • Several indices and impact factors
  • Additional help from altmetrics? E.g., downloads.

Preplanning is important when choosing the right publishing channel as well as while conducting research. This means that publication strategies should be considered during the process of writing a thesis. This kind of planning is also important in terms of acquiring a useful working life skill, and if the degree student is aiming towards doctoral studies in the future. The supervisor can raise discussion about doctoral studies during a Master’s thesis writing process. For example:

• Principles of publishing an academic article: how to bring up a possible career as a researcher?
• Funding: JYU’s open access agreements by publishers are also available in article-based theses
• If you are interested in a career as a researcher, it is useful to start the process of profiling. For example, ORCID (international) is commonly used. When becoming a doctoral student, you can combine ORCID and JYU Converis -profiles together, which makes profiling through release notes easier.

• Accessibility in theses on JYX
• General accessibility guidelines (Celia)
• Theseus guide (Universities of Applied Sciences)
• Pay particular attention to e.g.:
  
  • Planning of thesis as a whole: Clear division of paragraphs and chapters. Using style designs in writing programs
  • Alternative texts for non-textual sections
  • Clear language and expressions
  • Creating a PDF-file so that features enhancing accessibility are saved to the file.

Copyrights are often handled during data acquisition training by reminding about referencing and practicing the use of reference management programs. These are tightly connected to research ethics, which is a topic that should be dealt with in detail during thesis seminars. Copyrights are linked to the thesis writer themself, papers and other productions made by others, text, images, audiovisual material and so on. More information about thesis copyright issues at JYU.

Copyright issues come with several related terms and concepts, from which the following are often encountered when writing a thesis: threshold of originality, related rights, and paternity laws. When it comes to co-writing, coming to a pre-agreement is important. When publishing the thesis, you can think about different kinds of licenses, for example, Creative Commons licenses are often used in a variety of theses and papers regarding their openness.

More information on copyright issues and licenses is available at the Open Science Centre. For example, information sessions on licenses are held as well. Additional information is also available online:

• Copyrights in general
  
  • You will receive a label or certificate after finishing Kopiraittila’s course. It can be used in teaching, e.g., as a requirement for course completion
  • Kopiraittila academy (Kopiosto)
  • Copyright ABCs -series (Sanasto)
  • Tekijänoikeus.fi (Copyrights in Finland)
  • C-info (Kopiosto)
• Teaching and copyrights
  
  • Operight (IPR University Center, OKM) (Copyrights in teaching) (https://operight.fi/)
• Images and copyrights
  
  • ImagOA (Aalto University)
  • Image copyright ABCs -series (Kuvasto).