Embargoes Can Only Go So Far to Help New Ph.D.'s Get Published, Experts Say

From the CHE
 .......editors at two university presses backed away from offering her a book contract for a revised version of her dissertation, which is about urban public hospitals and the care of the poor in Houston in the mid-20th century, upon learning that it was posted online. Some half-dozen other editors voiced interest in her work at scholarly conferences and then said they could not publish a monograph based largely on a dissertation readily available online.
She was forced to shelve efforts to publish a revised version of her dissertation with a university press.......

Historians Seek a Delay in Posting Dissertations

Historians Seek a Delay in Posting Dissertations

.... why would someone work years to produce a dissertation and then insist that it not be seen for as many as six more years?....university presses are known to be skeptical about agreeing to publish a book when the Ph.D dissertation it is based on is readily available online.......“The idea of locking up ideas for six years is not right,” said Heather Joseph, the executive director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, which favors open research. “The thing that bothered us the most is that it was a one-dimensional response to a multidimensional issue, and a missed opportunity.”........

Publishing Your Dissertation Online: What’s a New Ph.D. to Do?

Publishing Your Dissertation Online: What’s a New Ph.D. to Do? (from CHE)

Early this week, the American Historical Association (AHA) released a controversial statement that strongly advised graduate programs and libraries to adopt a policy allowing the embargoing of the publication of completed dissertations online for up to six years. The statement has generated much praise and much criticism. Supporters of the statement argue that it protects junior authors, given that in the current academic climate a completed, published, single-authored monograph continues to be the standard for tenure and promotion in fields like history. Opponents of the statement counter with several arguments: that making the dissertation research public, rather than keeping it embargoed for years, allows the junior scholar to gain credit for his or her work; that the revision necessary to turn a dissertation into a book makes the two significantly different scholarly works; and finally, that the AHA should actively consider rethinking the book as a gold standard for advancement.