ubc phd dissertation

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UBC Theses and Dissertations

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The UBC Theses and Dissertations collection promotes open and comprehensive access to a significant body of unique knowledge created by graduate students to support further research and for private study. The authors retain copyright ownership and moral rights to their theses. The content of theses may not be re-purposed or exploited for commercial gain without the explicit permission of the authors.

UBC graduate students began submitting their theses online via cIRcle, UBC’s digital repository, in fall 2007, a practice that both simplified the submission process and also ensured the availability of this research to a global audience in a timely manner. As of March 2012, UBC Library has digitized and made openly accessible the full-text of more than 32,000 theses submitted by graduate students between 1919 and 2007. In addition to providing information about specific fields of study these theses also reveal important information about changes in pedagogy at the University and within academic disciplines. Authors concerned about having their pre-2007 theses included as part of this collection can notify [email protected] to have their thesis removed. Similarly, if copyrighted material appears in a thesis the copyright owner can request that material be removed.

Browse Theses & Dissertations

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Theses and Dissertations

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Citation Examples

Need more citation information, apa citation style (6th ed.).

See pages 40-41 in the manual for more detail.

Sample citation for a dissertation retrieved from ProQuest database: Aguiar, L. (2001). The ‘dirt' on the contract cleaning industry in Toronto:      Cleanliness and work reorganization (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved      from Proquest Dissertations & Theses. (Publication number AAT NQ67931)

Sample citation for a thesis retrieved from an online database: Gibson, L. S. (2007). Considering critical thinking and History 12: One      teacher's story (Master's thesis). Retrieved from https://circle.ubc.ca/

MLA Citation Style (8th Ed. 2016)

Thesis or Dissertation Retrieved from Online Repository.

Format: Author Last Name, First Name or Initial. Year of Pub. Title of Thesis. Date of Publication. Publisher, Description of Work. Container (Name of Repository), Location (URL or DOI).

Sample citation for a dissertation retrieved from the MLA database:

Wang, Yuanfei. Feminine Fantasies and Reality in the Fiction of Eileen Chang and Alice Munro. 2004. U of British Columbia, MA Thesis. cIRcle, dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0091943. In-text citation: (Wang 125)  

Chicago Citation Style (16th Ed.)

See pages 746-747 (#14.224) in the manual for more detail. Note: The examples below are for a bibliographic entry. For footnotes/endnotes rearrange the pieces of the citation below following the basic format of a book citation.

Sample citation for a dissertation retrieved from ProQuest database: Rose, John Stanley. "Charting Citizenship: The Political Participation of      Immigrants in Richmond and Surrey, British Columbia." PhD diss.,      University of British Columbia, 2007. ProQuest (AAT NR31918).   

Sample citation for a thesis retrieved from an online database: Brillinger, Marc A. "Silence Descends: The Effects of Rising Authoritarianism      and Fear on Citizen Engagement." Master's thesis, University of British      Columbia, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/17437

The UBC Research Commons offers workshops throughout each term on three of the most popular citation management tools: RefWorks, Mendeley, and Zotero. To view upcoming workshops and to register for a session, visit the Library Workshops and Events Calendar and search for citation management. They also offer individual consultation appointments, via the link under "Consultations" on the main Research Commons page . You can also email them at [email protected].

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• Last Updated: Feb 1, 2022 2:35 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.ubc.ca/theses

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DISSERTATION PLANNING

Thesis planning.

The PhD dissertation is an original piece of work that offers you the opportunity to hone your research skills, become an expert in a specialized area of knowledge, and contribute to your field of scholarship. It will set the stage for your future research career.

Dissertation Supervisor

Your PhD dissertation is guided by your Dissertation Supervisor.

The Faculty of Graduate Studies has an excellent resource for students and their supervisors that outlines how to get the most out of the supervisor-graduate student relationship at UBC:

Faculty of Graduate Studies Handbook of Supervision

General Timeline

By the completion of the first year of coursework, you should confirm a dissertation supervisor.

View faculty eligible to supervise

In consultation with your supervisor, you will establish a dissertation supervisory committee comprised of at least three members, two of whom must be tenure-track faculty members within the School of Nursing, holding the rank, assistant professor or higher. The composition of each committee must conform to the requirements set out by the Faculty of Graduate Studies.

Within 2 Years - Comprehensive Examination

Within the first 24 months after admission to the doctoral program you will complete a comprehensive examination.

• School of Nursing Comprehensive Examination Guidelines
• ​ Faculty of Graduate Studies Comprehensive Examination Guidelines

Within 3 Years - Candidacy Examination and Advancement to Candidacy

After successfully completing your comprehensive exam, you will work with your supervisor and committee to develop a research proposal, which must be publicly defended through an oral candidacy examination. Successful completion of the oral candidacy exam leads to advancement to candidacy, normally occurs within 36 months from admission. 

• School of Nursing Candidacy Examination Guidelines
• ​Faculty of Graduate Studies Advancement to Candidacy Guidelines
• ​Faculty of Graduate Studies Recommendation for Advancement to Candidacy form

Once you have been recommended to candidacy (i.e., your proposal has been approved), you will seek ethical approval for your research from the appropriate research ethics boards and agencies. If applicable, you may then commence with the conduct of your research.

• How to Obtain Ethics Approval (UBC Office of Research Ethics)

In the event that a virtual exam needs to take place, please see the Virtual Doctoral Exam Policy.  

Within 4 Years - Dissertation Submission for External Examiner and Final Oral Examination

The defense is planned before the report from the external examiner is received.

Once your dissertation has been reviewed and approved by your supervisor and committee, you begin planning for your final oral examination ('the defense'). The process involves review of the dissertation by an external examiner and university internal examiners. This requires foresight and knowledge of relevant policies and deadlines. Students are advised to discuss their plans for program completion well in advance with their dissertation supervisors. The Graduate Advisor is available to assist in planning and interpreting the relevant policies.

The completed dissertation must be approved by your supervisor and committee before it is submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.

• Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies Guidelines for Submitting Your Dissertation for External Examination
• Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies Guide for the Final Doctoral Examinations
• Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies Doctoral Deadlines

Final, post-defence submission of dissertation

The Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies sets the policies and procedures for dissertation completion and submission:

• Faculty of Graduate Studies Guidelines for Doctoral Dissertation Preparation and Submission

Accessing completed dissertations of PhD Alumni

You can view all completed dissertations at  cIRcle , UBC's digital database of research.

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A thesis (master’s) or dissertation (doctoral) is the final product of a student’s time in graduate school. Students should begin planning their thesis/dissertation from the very beginning of their degree program.

In general, a thesis/dissertation should reflect the writer’s ability to:

• Critically analyze the relevant literature
• Use and describe in detail the appropriate methodology for the research undertaken
• Conduct research and present findings
• Verify knowledge claims and sources meticulously
• Locate the work of the thesis and its findings within the broader field or discipline
• Communicate the research and analysis effectively

Information about the scope of a dissertation can be found in our policy manual .

The thesis/dissertation must be a coherent document that provides a complete and systematic account of the student’s research. It may incorporate work from submitted, accepted or published journal articles, which may or may not have co-authors.

Prospective or current graduate students who have questions about theses and dissertations that are not answered below, or are in need of additional support, are encouraged to contact the office by email ( [email protected] ).

Preparation

Students should prepare for their thesis from the very beginning of their degree program.

PREPARE YOUR THESIS

Examination

Students in thesis-based graduate programs must defend their theses in an oral examination

Students must submit their final thesis documentation electronically to [email protected] .

POST DEFENCE SUBMISSION

Every candidate for a degree must make a formal application for degree conferral via the Student Service Centre (SSC)

DEGREE CONFERRAL

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Essential Tips for UBC Thesis or Dissertation Submission

By Amber Saundry on Sep 19, 2023

Photo courtesy: UBC Brand & Marketing

All UBC graduate students are required to submit their thesis or dissertation to cIRcle, UBC Library’s openly available digital repository, which currently holds more than 51,000 UBC theses and dissertations dating back to 1919.

If you’re a graduate student ready to submit your thesis or dissertation, we’ve outlined key steps on cIRcle’s Theses and Dissertations page . In this blog post, we’re highlighting some essential tips for a smooth process.

Who can help if I have questions?

Though cIRcle is the repository for UBC theses and dissertations, your Graduate Studies website is the first place to go for any questions about deadlines, preparation (including delay of publication & formatting), and submission (including account activation).

If the website does not answer your questions, UBC Vancouver students may contact Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (G+PS, [email protected] ), while UBC Okanagan students may contact the College of Graduate Studies (CoGS, [email protected] ).

Thesis approval deadlines mean your thesis or dissertation must be approved in cIRcle by G+PS (UBC Vancouver) or CoGS (UBC Okanagan) before the deadline passes.

This means you need to complete post-defense finalizations, request any necessary permissions, complete formatting, submit, and complete any requested corrections before your thesis or dissertation can be approved.  Any and all of these steps can take time!

Check permissions and consider embargo requirements

As the author, you are responsible for ensuring your thesis or dissertation complies with Canadian copyright law.  In some cases, you may need time to request necessary permissions to include particular components that were not created by you.  The Copyright at UBC Office has extensive information about your copyright and your thesis or dissertation , and can be contacted if you have specific questions.

During your submission to cIRcle, you’ll complete the cIRcle Non-Exclusive Distribution License .  You’ll retain copyright, while providing UBC the rights necessary to distribute and preserve your thesis or dissertation. Your thesis or dissertation will be licensed for use under a Creative Commons (CC) license , which indicates how others can share, use, and/or adapt your work.

If you need more time to complete publications or patent applications based on your thesis or dissertation research, or there’s a significant reason your work should not be released immediately, you may need to consider application of an embargo period.  You must do this after your defense, but before you proceed with submission to cIRcle .  For more information, see G+PS’ How to Request a Delay in Publication (UBC Vancouver) or CoGS’ Post-Defence Submission (UBC Okanagan).

Review formatting requirements

Your thesis or dissertation must conform to the specifications of the university, in both structure and formatting.

For thesis or dissertation preparation and formatting, UBC Vancouver students should refer to  G+PS’ Dissertation & Thesis Preparation and Formatting Requirements , while UBC Okanagan students should refer to CoGS’ Thesis and Dissertation Preparation .

Create a cIRcle account and request authorization

Before you can submit your thesis or dissertation, you must:

• Ensure your completed forms are submitted to G+PS/CoGS (as applicable).
• Create a cIRcle account .
• Send an e-mail with your name and cIRcle account e-mail to G+PS/CoGS (as applicable) in order to be authorized to submit to a thesis/dissertation collection .

You will be notified when your cIRcle account has been authorized, and you can proceed with submission. See G+PS’s Final Submission Instructions (UBC Vancouver) or CoGS’ Post-Defence Submission (UBC Okanagan) for necessary forms and more information.

Once you are ready to submit your thesis or dissertation, cIRcle provides a step-by-step submission guide .

For Master of Fine Arts/Music students only, there is an option to submit to a campus wide login (CWL)-access collection in cIRcle.  You can follow the associated step-by-step submission guide .

After you submit

Once submitted, G+PS (UBC Vancouver) or CoGS (UBC Okanagan) will review your thesis or dissertation, and notify you if you are required to complete any changes and re-submit (so keep a close eye on your e-mail).  Once your thesis or dissertation has undergone approval by G+PS/CoGS, you will receive a confirmation e-mail, and cannot make further changes.

After approval by G+PS/CoGS, your thesis or dissertation will undergo final review by the Library, which takes 1-3 business days.  Upon approval by the Library, you will receive an e-mail notification with the persistent URL for your thesis or dissertation. You’ll be able to view your thesis or dissertation online (unless you’ve requested an embargo) and it’ll be assigned a digital object identifier (DOI) that can be used to share and cite your work.

Congratulations! Your work can now be viewed around the world and will be preserved for future generations in the UBC Theses and Dissertations collection.

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• Minor in Informatics
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PhD Program

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UBC School of Information’s Doctor in Philosophy in Library, Archival and Information Studies is a four-year funded program that combines coursework with focused independent study and research. Our students have ready access to faculty members and benefit from unique opportunities at a comprehensive, world-class, research-intensive university.

We designed our PhD program to provide advanced research education for outstanding and highly motivated students who have already obtained a Master of Archival Studies (MAS) degree, a Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) or an equivalent related degree.

• Information seeking, retrieval and use
• Human-computer interaction and design
• Critical approaches to information systems and services
• Information appraisal, classification and organization
• Social computing
• Information ethics and information policy
• Personal archives, digital archives, and online communities
• Records and information management
• Data management and natural language processing
• Blockchain technologies, information trust and governance
• Digital cultural heritage and preservation
• Digital humanities

Program highlights

• Advanced education in information and archival studies
• Focus on scholarship and research, with strong support for interdisciplinary approaches
• State-of-the-art research and learning facilities at a world-class university

Identify a potential supervisor

The doctoral program is highly selective. The strongest applicants have research interests aligned with the faculty expertise in the School of Information. Identifying a faculty member who can support your application does not guarantee an offer of admission. Still, it can ensure that your application is read carefully in light of the limited number of positions available each year. The following paragraphs provide suggestions for reaching out to potential supervisors.

• Familiarize yourself with program requirements. You want to learn as much as possible from the information available before reaching out to a faculty member.

Focus your research

• Identify faculty members who are conducting research in your specific area of interest.
• Read up on the faculty members in the program and the research conducted in the department.
• Familiarize yourself with their work, and read their recent publications and past theses/dissertations they supervised. Be sure that their research is indeed what you are hoping to study.

Make a good impression

• Do not send mass emails to everyone in the department hoping for a match.
• Address the faculty members by name. Your contact should be genuine rather than generic.
• Include a brief outline of your academic background, why you are interested in working with the faculty member, and what experience you could bring to the department.
• Highlight your achievements and why you are a top student. Faculty members receive dozens of requests from prospective students, and you may have less than 30 seconds to pique someone's interest.
• Convey the specific ways you are a good fit for the program.
• Convey the specific ways the program/lab/faculty member is a good fit for the research you are interested in/are already conducting.
• Be enthusiastic, but don't overdo it.

Course requirements

Students entering the doctoral program with an approved master’s degree will be required to take a minimum of 24 credits of coursework before achieving candidacy.

Your advisor may recommend additional courses, and you may be required to take courses in the iSchool Master of Library and Information Studies program or the Master of Archival Studies program to provide sufficient background for your research focus.

In addition, we strongly encourage our doctoral students to take graduate-level courses from other UBC departments in their chosen area of research.

Program details

Upon entering the doctoral program, you will be assigned an adviser who will work with you to develop an appropriate coursework schedule relevant to your research plan. You will take advance study in the major and minor areas (LAIS 620 and 621) with your advisor or the faculty member(s) best aligned with your research focus.

The qualifying exams assess your knowledge of the relevant literature, analytic capacity, and skill in developing original written and oral presentations of ideas. Typically, your advisor becomes your dissertation supervisor through the qualifying examinations.

Upon successfully completing the qualifying examinations, you will enter the dissertation stage of the program. Working closely with your supervisor, you will assemble a dissertation committee of no fewer than two additional eligible faculty members; these may be the same faculty who assessed your qualifying exams.

You will develop and defend a dissertation proposal of not less than 30 pages following the guidelines in the Doctoral handbook of policies and procedures . The goal of the proposal is to ascertain your research readiness.

Upon the successful defence of the proposal, you are recommended for candidacy.

You will then undertake the research and writing to prepare the dissertation following the guidelines of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (G+PS). When the dissertation is completed and successfully defended, you will be recommended for your Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree.

Qualifying examinations

The qualifying exams for the School of Information PhD consist of coursework (LAIS 620 and LAIS 621) as well as a formal examination with written and oral components. This overview of the qualifying exam process is meant as a guide for students and faculty. While specific details of each student’s exam preparation, writing and defence will vary, there are consistent timelines, objectives and expectations of all doctoral students. This document sets out a process for preparing for, writing, and assessing the qualifying examination as a key milestone in a student’s progress toward degree.

Students receive course credit (and faculty receive teaching credit) for LAIS 620 and LAIS 621. As such, the policies related to student resources, academic concession, academic integrity, academic accommodation, and conflicting responsibilities that apply to all other coursework also apply to the qualifying examination. Students who have needs or concerns related to these policies can negotiate adjustments to the exam procedures with their advisor and the Doctoral Studies Chair. Details of the policies and how to access support are available here.

Upon completion of all other degree coursework requirements (See: degree requirements), a student is enrolled in LAIS 620 (Advanced Study in the Major Area) and LAIS 621 (Advanced Study in the Minor Area) by the Program Assistant. The courses are six credits each, and should be taken over the course of the Winter 1 & 2 terms of the second year of doctoral study. These courses represent the preparation for the qualifying exam (50%) as well as the exam itself (50%). The preparation portion of each course is satisfied through a directed study with the student’s advisor or potential committee member. The advisor may recommend additional coursework for credit course auditing, depending on the student’s background or intended topic of study.

Through the LAIS 620 and 621 coursework, the student provides evidence that they are able to:

• Identify and describe Major and Minor areas of focus that will frame the examination process;
•  Read for both depth and breadth in the areas of focus;
• Curate bibliographies of academic sources that represent key concepts, ideas, theories, or methods in the areas of focus;
• Develop research relevant questions that emerge from the reading;
• Connect the research focus area(s) with the broader discipline;
• Communicate clearly and effectively to academic audiences, in written and oral forms.

Key outputs from the LAIS 620/621 coursework are materials that guide the examination process, specifically:

• An overview document for the Major and Minor areas (length determined by the advisor, however 1500 to 3000 words is typical) that provides a fulsome description of the areas of focus, important concepts and definitions, and key questions that emerge from reading in these areas; and
• A guiding bibliography of 40-50 sources for each of the areas of focus.

The Major and Minor areas of focus are developed with the approval and consultation of the advisor and examination committee. The Major and Minor together should support the development of student thinking, but not encapsulate exhaustively the thinking within a discipline. The level of specificity and scope are important considerations. The Major and Minor areas should be complementary but not overlap. For example, the Major area may be the central focus of a student’s intended inquiry, with the Minor area a complementary theory or method, or a cognate area related to but not a subset of the Major.

The qualifying exam has two overarching objectives: 1) to assess the student’s knowledge of current trends, theories, and methods in the areas of focus; 2) to determine if the doctoral student is sufficiently prepared to design their dissertation project.

• Through the qualifying exam, the student provides evidence that they are able to:
• Identify and critically read relevant literature in the areas of focus;
• Comprehend and evaluate arguments in the areas of focus;
• Integrate and synthesize ideas within the areas of focus;
• Put their research focus area(s) in conversation with the broader discipline;

The student will be expected to demonstrate their knowledge, and critical analysis in the discipline through:

• Knowledge of the main issues or problems in the areas of focus;
• Incisive evaluation of current and past research;
• Rigorous analysis, organization and synthesis of information;
• Clear written, and oral communication of ideas, concepts and arguments.

Students are expected to read carefully and write to issues that are contained within these bibliographies, but cannot be expected to read or write outside them as part of the examination process.

The faculty member who advises a doctoral student through their course work and qualifying exams is known as an adviser. This is usually (but not always) the same person who supervises their work as they write their dissertation, the supervisor.

The student and their adviser will assemble an Examination Committee that will adjudicate the Major and Minor focus areas by setting the exam questions and assessing the answers. The Examination Committee will consist of the adviser and two or three additional faculty members. These are typically faculty who have served as instructors to the student, have supervised reading courses in one or more of the areas of study, or have expertise related to the focus areas. The student's adviser will chair the committee.

The Examination Committee will set the questions for both the Major and Minor area exams. The questions will be based on the Major and Minor focus area descriptions and accompanying bibliographies approved by the committee by the end of January of their second year. After committee approval, the scheduling of the written exam and oral defense can occur.

Structure of the examinations

• The qualifying examination occurs in the Winter 2 term of the student’s second year in the Doctoral Program, and must be completed within 24 months of starting the program, as required by the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.
• Writing of the Major and Minor areas will occur within a 30-day period, and the overall length of the examination should not exceed two months.
• The format for the written examination is a take-home examination to be completed during a 21-day writing period. The writing period must begin and end on a weekday. The dates can be negotiated, and a one-day extension granted if a statutory holiday, religious holiday or cultural observance falls within the writing period (see UBC policy on conflicting responsibilities).
• The examination is intended to be a sequestered writing period, during which the student should have minimal contact with other students and faculty. Peer editing and reviewing of draft answers is not permissible, nor should the student and advisor or examination committee consult on the questions once they are administered. Students who need accommodations such as an extended exam period or writing support should consult with their advisor and DSC Chair in advance of the examination scheduling.
• The examination will comprise two significant essays, one each for the Major and Minor focus areas. The essay prompts will be formulated by the committee, and reflect the depth and breadth of the Major and Minor. The major area essay prompt should be presented as an opportunity for the student to compose a “state of the field” review related to the student’s area of research focus. The Minor essay prompt should permit the student to focus on a theory, method or cognate area that complements the Major area, without being redundant. In terms of length, approximately 5,000 words (including references) would constitute a minimal answer for each essay, with 7-10,000 words judged more acceptable in most cases.
• An oral examination of not more than three hours will occur not more than two weeks following the completion of the writing period.
• The oral examination committee consists of at least three members of Examination Committee.
• The Chair of the DSC serves as examination chair, and there is no audience present.

Sample Exam Timeline (Actual dates negotiated among student, committee, and DSC Chair):

• Supervisor submits questions vetted and approved by the examining committee to the Program Assistant one week before the exam writing period begins (February 24).
• Student receives exam questions on Friday March 3 at 9am [21-day writing period begins].
• Student submits written answers to Program Assistant on Thursday March 23 at 5pm [Writing period ends].
• Committee has seven days to read and evaluate essays.
• Committee communicates to DSC Chair that oral exam will proceed on Thursday March 30.
• Oral exam occurs Friday March 31.

After a student submits the written qualifying exam essays, the examination committee will have no less than seven days to read and evaluate them prior to the oral examination. The committee should confer prior to the oral examination to confirm that the quality of the written essays is adequate to proceed. If the essays are adequate, the student will proceed to the oral examination. If the essays are deemed inadequate, the committee will recommend either a mark of FAIL, or Adjournment (see below). The committee’s agreement to proceed or not proceed to the oral examination should be a consensus decision sent to the DSC Chair at least one day prior to the oral examination.

The purpose of the oral examination is to allow the student to provide context for their written exam answers, to demonstrate additional depth and breadth of knowledge in the area, and to show their communicative competency. The questions of the oral examination will be related to the questions answered by the student in the written examination of the major and minor areas. Examiners' questions will be based on peripheral or related material that contributes to a complete answer to the questions posed.

The oral examination will be comprised of the following parts:

• Introductions and clarification of procedures by the DSC Chair or designate
• Student presentation (15 minutes maximum – see below)
• Examination of the Major Area: At least one round of questions from each examiner, until all examiners are satisfied.
• Examination of the Minor Area: At least one round of questions from each examiner, until all examiners are satisfied.
• In-camera session: The student is dismissed, and the examiners meet with the Chair to discuss the outcome, feedback, and mark for the examination.
• Feedback: The student returns to the exam session and the Chair or Advisor provide the outcome and next steps.

At the beginning of the oral exam the student may take the opportunity to expand on their answers to the written exam questions, amplifying the answers or outlining the key points. This speaking opportunity must take no longer than 15 minutes, and may be strictly oral or aided only by notes or a visual presentation (i.e., the student is not allowed to read a prepared paper). The student may bring into the oral examination only a copy of the written exam and the notes or software (e.g., PowerPoint) for the 15-minute presentation.

During the in-camera session of the examination, the faculty will evaluate the student’s written and oral performance on each of the Major and Minor areas of focus. The student will be given one of three marks for each the Major and Minor. Faculty will assess the written and oral examination for each area as a combined mark.

• Unconditional PASS : The student’s performance in the written and oral examination meets all the indicators. The examination milestone is considered met and a grade is assigned.
• Conditional PASS : The student’s performance in the written and oral examination meets most of the indicators, but may need additional writing or revision to satisfy the committee. A student who receives the mark of Conditional PASS must complete revisions under the direction of the Advisor within two weeks. The committee will assess the revised responses and either provide the mark of FAIL or Unconditional PASS. Further oral examination is not required.
• FAIL : The student’s performance in the written and oral examination does not meet the exam indicators above. A student who receives the mark of FAIL must withdraw from the program. UBC procedures for appeal of assigned academic standing are detailed in the Academic Regulations section of the UBC Calendar.

A student may receive a split decision for the Major and Minor areas; that is, the mark assigned may be different if the written or oral performance is inadequate in either area. If a student receives a Conditional PASS in either area, the numerical grade will be provided after the revision period. If a student receives a FAIL in either the Major or Minor area, the milestone is not met, and the student must withdraw from the program.

A student receives a grade for each of the Major (620) and Minor (621) area examinations. This grade is a score that reflects their combined written and oral performance. The examination grade constitutes 50% of the grade for the Major or Minor area, the other 50% being the score assigned for the exam preparation. The Advisor should bring the preparation scores to the in-camera session. The grades for preparation and examination are averaged and submitted to the Program Assistant using the grading form provided on the school’s internal website.

A student who receives the mark of Unconditional PASS should receive a grade that is appropriate to their level of achievement, i.e., in the A to A+ range (85-95). A student who shows weaker performance in either the oral or written components, but not to the point where revision is necessary, may receive a lower grade. However, all grades for an Unconditional PASS must be above the B level (74+).

In the event the examination committee is unable to reach consensus on either the mark or numerical grade in the in-camera session, the DSC Chair (or their designate as examination chair) will serve as arbiter.

An adjournment may occur when the examination process needs to be halted for additional preparation, or for personal reasons arising from the student’s situation. There are two conditions under which the exam process may be halted or adjourned.

• Faculty requested adjournment: If one or both examination essays are of an unacceptable quality, but there is confidence they can be improved with additional preparation, the chair of the examination committee may request an adjournment. This request should be made between the submission of the essays and the oral examination. The request should be made to the DSC Chair.
• Student requested adjournment: If the student experiences a personal situation that puts their ability to complete the examination in question (significant illness, unexpected life incident, or emergency), they may request an adjournment. This request should be made during the writing period to the advisor and DSC Chair.

If an adjournment is granted, the student will have six months to complete the examination process. The student may not proceed to the oral examination until the written essays are deemed of sufficient quality. If the student does not produce passable essays on the second try, the student will be given the mark of FAIL and must withdraw from the program. The student must be informed of the committee’s decision in writing, and will have the opportunity to appeal to the DSC Chair. A candidate will be permitted to re-write the examination only once. The student is responsible for scheduling the re-writing.

All students can appeal the examination mark or numerical grade if they feel that the process for administration or assessment was unfair or in error. To appeal, the student must send a written note of appeal, along with any evidence to support their claim, to the DSC Chair within one week of receiving their examination feedback. The Chair will review the written essays and chair report to identify if any redress is appropriate. The outcome of the appeal will be provided to the student in writing no more than 30 days after receipt of the appeal.

Career outcomes

Graduates of the School of Information Doctoral Program have held positions in academia, including tenure track faculty at some of the world's leading universities, the IT industry, and leadership roles in libraries, archives, and other public sector institutions.

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Our graduate students are actively engaged in ground-breaking research as part of their programs.

Discover successfully defended theses and dissertations from our alumni.

2023 Alumni

Angsongna, Alexander (PhD) Aspects of the morphophonology of Dagaare

Huijsmans, Marianne (PhD) Second-position clitics, from morphosyntax to semantics : the ʔayʔaǰuθəm (Comox-Sliammon) perspective

Oliveira Salles, Raiane (PhD) Functional categorization parameters : argumenthood with functional heads other than D in Carioca Brazilian Portuguese and Pirahã

Soo, Rachel (PhD) Perception, recognition, and encoding of Cantonese sound change variants

2022 Alumni

Tkachman, Oksana (PhD) Embodiment and emergent phonology in the visual-manual modality : factors enabling sublexical componentiality

Lo, Roger (Yu-Hsiang) (PhD) Post-stop fundamental frequency perturbation in production and perception of Mandarin stop voicing  

Anghelescu, Andrei (PhD) Prosodic phonology in Nata

2021 Alumni

Guntly, Erin Alisa (PhD) ‘Yeah, I doubt it.’ ‘No, it’s true.’ How paradoxical responses impact the common ground

Akinbo, Samuel Kayode (PhD) Vowel harmony and some related processes in Fungwa

Aonuki, Yurika (MA) Relative pronominal tense: Evidence from Gitksan, Japanese, and English

Bosurgi, Alexandra (MA) Reexamining gender stereotype effects in speech processing : a replication of Strand (2000)

Johnson, Khia Anne (PhD) Crosslinguistic similarity and structured variation in Cantonese-English bilingual speech production

2020 Alumni

Osa Gómez del Campo, Adriana (PhD) Epistemic (mis)alignment in discourse : what Spanish discourse markers reveal

Fry, Michael David (PhD) Grammaticus ex machina: Tone inventories as hypothesized by machine

Keupdjio, Hermann Sidoine (PhD) The syntax of A′-dependencies in Bamileke Medumba

Amoako, Wendy Kwakye (MA) Assessing phonological development among Akan-speaking children

Weber, Natalie (PhD) Syntax, prosody, and metrical structure in Blackfoot

2019 Alumni

Crippen, James A. (PhD) The syntax in Tlingit verbs

Gambarage, Joash Johannes (PhD) Belief-of-existence determiners: Evidence from the syntax and semantics of Nata augments

Heim, Johannes M. (PhD) Commitment and engagement: The role of intonation in deriving speech acts

Keough, Megan (PhD) The role of prior experience in the integration of aerotactile speech information

Ozburn, Avery (PhD) A target-oriented approach to neutrality in vowel harmony

Yuan, Yifang (MA) Response markers in Mandarin Chinese conversation: A corpus-based case study of shi, dui, xing, hao and the variants of shi

2018 Alumni

Black, Alexis K. (PhD) How perception constrains statistical learning across development

Chen, Sihwei (PhD) Finding semantic building blocks: Temporal and modal interpretation in Atayal

Lam, Wai Man (PhD) Perception of lexical tones by homeland and heritage speakers of Cantonese

de Oliveira Andreotti, Bruno Luis (MA) Interpreting derived stative predicates: Evidence from ʔayʔaǰuθəm

2017 Alumni

Burge, Heather (MA) Prospective aspect in Tlingit

Mackie, James Scott (PhD) Simulating the evolution of consonant inventories

McClay, Elise Kedersha (MA) Focus in Ktunaxa: Word order and prosody

Stelle, Elizabeth Leigh (PhD) Visual feedback during speech production

Thoma, Sonja Christine (PhD) Discourse particles and the syntax of discourse: Evidence from Miesbach Bavarian

2016 Alumni

Allen, Blake H. (PhD) Bayesian models of learning and generating inflectional morphology

Fund-Reznicek, Ella (MA) Communication and coordination between singers performing duets

Glougie, Jennifer Robin Sarah (PhD) The semantic and pragmatics of English evidential expressions: The expression of evidentiality in police interviews

Littell, Patrick William (PhD) Focus, predication, and polarity in Kwak’wala

McMullin, Kevin James (PhD) Tier-based locality in long-distance phonotactics: learnability and typology

Moewaki, Ayako (MA) Quantifiers in Kwak’wala

Noguchi, Masaki (PhD) Acquisition of allophony from speech input by adult learners

2015 Alumni

Abel, Jennifer Colleen (PhD) The effect of task difficulty on speech convergence

Bicevskis, Katie (MA)

Visual-tactile integration and individual differences in speech perception

Božič, Jurij (MA)

Spell-out of phonological domains: the case of Slovenian

Chiu, Cheng-hao (PhD)

Startling auditory stimulus as a window into speech motor planning

Gutiérrez, Analía (PhD)

Segmental and prosodic complexity in Nivaĉle: laryngeals, laterals, and metathesis

Liu, Tianhan (MA)

Modal concord in Mandarin

Louie, Meagan (PhD)

The temporal semantics of actions and circumstance in Blackfoot

McAuliffe, Michael (PhD)

Attention and salience in lexically-guided perceptual learning

Toews, Carmela Irene Penner (PhD)

Topics in Siamou tense and aspect

2014 Alumni

D’Aquisto, Joseph Paul (MA)

Visual discrimination of French and English in inter-speech and speech-ready position

Dunham, Joel Robert William (PhD)

The online linguistic database : software for linguistic fieldwork

Fuhrman, Robert (MA)

Vocal effort and within-speaker coordination in speech production : effects on postural control

Sherer, Laura (MA)

Nominalization and voice in Kwak’wala

Vincent, Audra (MA)

Coeur d’Alene Aspect

2013 Alumni

Bliss, Heather (PhD)

The Blackfoot configurationality conspiracy: parallels and differences in clausal and nominal structures

Greene, Hannah (MA)

Verb classes in Kwaḱwala

Lyon, John (PhD)

Predication and equation in Okanagan Salish: the syntax and semantics of determiner phrases

Menzies, Stacey (MA)

Nsyilxcen modality: semantic analysis of epistemic modality

Schellenberg, Murray Henry (PhD)

The realization of tone in singing in Cantonese and Mandarin

Yamane, Noriko (PhD)

‘Placeless’ consonants in Japanese: an ultrasound investigation

2012 Alumni

Scott, Mark (PhD)

Speech imagery as corollary discharge

Szakay, Anita (PhD)

The effect of dialect on bilingual lexical processing and representation

Thompson, James J. (PhD)

Syntactic nominalization in Halkomelem Salish

Waldie, Ryan James (PhD)

Evidentiality in Nuu-chah-nulth

2011 Alumni

Arkoh, Ruby Becky (MA)

Semantics of Akan bi and nʊ

Armoskaite, Solveiga (PhD)

The Destiny of Roots in Blackfoot and Lithuanian

Christodoulou, Christiana (PhD)

Cypriot Greek Down syndrome: their grammar and its interfaces

Derrick, Donald (PhD)

Kinematic patterning of flaps, taps and rhotics in English

Fujimori, Atsushi (PhD)

The correspondence between vowel quality and verbal telicity in Yamato-Japanese

Jacobs, Peter (PhD)

Control in Skwxwu7mesh

Jóhannsdóttir, Kristín M. (PhD)

Aspects of the progressive in English and Icelandic

Sterian, Laura Andreea (MA)

The syntax and semantics of gap and resumptive strategies in Iraqi Arabic D-linked content questions

2010 Alumni

Chávez-Peón, Mario (PhD)

The interaction of metrical structure, tone, and phonation types in Quiaviní Zapotec

Hudu, Fusheini (PhD)

Dagbani tongue-root harmony: a formal account with ultrasound investigation

Mudzingwa, Calisto (PhD)

Shona morphophonemics: repair strategies in Karanga and Zezuru

Peterson, Tyler (PhD)

Epistemic modality and evidentiality in Gitksan at the semantics-pragmatics interface

2009 Alumni

Caldecott, Marion (PhD)

Non-exhaustive parsing: phonetic and phonological evidence from St’át’imcets

Ferch, Elizabeth (MA)

Number and the scope of indefinites

2008 Alumni

Brown, Jason (PhD)

Theoretical aspects of Gitksan phonology

Cook, Clare (PhD)

The syntax and semantics of clause-typing in Plains Cree

Kiyota, Masaru (PhD)

Situation aspect and viewpoint aspect: from Salish to Japanese

Koch, Karsten (PhD)

Intonation and Focus in Nɬeʔkepmxcin (Thompson River Salish)

Mühlbauer, Jeffrey (PhD)

kâ-yôskâtahk ôma nêhiyawêwin: the representation of intentionality in Plains Cree

Steriopolo, Olga (PhD)

Form and function of expressive morphology: a case study of Russian

2007 Alumni

Barczak, Leszek (MA)

Towards an analysis of Yorùbá conditionals: its implications for the phrase structure

2006 Alumni

Ajíbóyè, Ọládiípọ̀ (PhD)

Topics on Yorùbá nominal expressions

Bar-el, Leora (PhD)

Aspectual distinctions in Sk̲wx̲wú7mesh

Gillon, Carrie (PhD)

The semantics of determiners domain restriction in Sk̲wx̲wú7mesh

Namdaran, Nahal (MA)

Retraction in St’át’imcets: an ultrasonic investigation

Picanço, Gessiane L. (PhD)

Mundurukú phonetics, phonology, synchrony, diachrony

Wilson, Ian (PhD)

Articulatory settings of French and English monolingual and bilingual speakers

2005 Alumni

Campbell, Fiona (MA)

The gestural organization of North American English /r/: a study of timing and magnitude

Oh, Sunyoung (PhD)

Articulatory characteristics of English /l/ in speech development

Perkins, Jeremy (MA)

The RTR harmonic domain in two dialects of Yorùbá

Quis, Dominique (MA)

The voice of a forgotten people: on the reconstructed etymology of the Beothuk (Shawthrut) self-designation sakanak ‘red indian people’

Ravinski, Christine (MA)

Grammatical possession in Nuu-chah-nulth

Ruangjaroon, Sugunya (PhD)

The syntax of WH-expressions as variables in Thai

Wojdak, Rachel (PhD)

The linearization of affixes: evidence from Nuu-chah-nulth

2004 Alumni

Jones, Susan (MA)

Progressive aspect and distributively quantified objects: a semantic/pragmatic account

McDowell, Ramona E. (MA)

Retraction in Montana Salish lateral consonants

Shank, Scott (PhD)

Domain widening

Shiobara, Kayono (PhD)

Linearization: a derivational approach to the syntax-prosody interface

2003 Alumni

Gessner, Suzanne (PhD)

The prosodic system of the Dakelh (Carrier) language

Gormley, Andrea (MA)

The production of consonant harmony in child speech

Kalmar, Michele (MA)

Patterns of reduplication in Kwak’wala

Kim, Eun-Sook (PhD)

Theoretical issues in Nuu-Chah-Nulth phonology and morphology

2002 Alumni

Baptiste, Maxine R. (MA)

Okanagan wh-questions

Kim, Soomee (MA)

Aspirates in Korean: perspectives on coalescence, CK, and gemination

2001 Alumni

Blake, Susan J. (PhD)

On the distribution and representation of schwa in Sliammon (Salish): descriptive and theoretical perspectives

Glougie, Jennifer (MA)

Topics in the syntax and semantics of Blackfoot quantifiers and nominals

Hirose, Tomio (PhD)

Origins of predicates evidence from Plains Cree

Howe, Darin M. (PhD)

Oowekyala segmental phonology

Rosen, Eric (PhD)

Phonological processes interacting with the lexicon: variable and non-regular effects in Japanese phonology

2000 Alumni

Kaneko, Ikuyo (MA)

A metrical analysis of Blackfoot nominal accent in optimality theory

Strauss, Uri (MA)

Phrase structure and verb movement in Hebrew and English imperatives

1999 Alumni

Bob, Tanya (MA)

Laryngeal phenomena in Tahltan

Caldecott, Marion (MA)

A comparison of glottalized resonants in Sənčaθən and St’át’imcets

Gessner, Suzanne (MA)

Laryngeal processes in Chipewyan and other Athapaskan languages

Nakamura, Yumiko (MA)

The syntax of possessor raising

1998 Alumni

Bar-El, Leora (MA)

Verbal plurality and adverbial quantification a case study of Sk̲wx̲ú7mesh (Squamish Salish)

Horseherder, Nicole (MA)

Binding-theoretic analysis of Navajo possessor YI-

Lai, I-Ju Sandra (MA)

The grammar and acquisition of Secwepemctsín independent pronouns

Suzuki, Takeru (PhD)

A theory of lexical functors light heads in the lexicon and the syntax

Uechi, Akihiko (PhD)

An interface approach to topic/focus structure

1997 Alumni

Blain, Eleanor M. (PhD)

Wh-constructions in Nêhiyawêwin (Plains Cree)

Chang, Lisa (MA)

Wh-in-situ phenomena in French

Currie, Elizabeth J. (MA)

Topic time: the syntax and semantics of SqwXwu7mish temporal adverbials

Leitch, Myles F. (PhD)

Vowel harmonies of the Congo Basin: an optimality theory analysis of variation in the Bantu zone C

Li, J. Cora R. (MA)

Bei and the passive in Cantonese

Sanchez, Monica (PhD)

Syntactic features in agrammatic production

Shahin, Kimary (PhD)

Postvelar harmony an examination of its bases and crosslinguistic variation

Turkel, William J. (MA)

On triggered learning

1996 Alumni

Jiang-King, Ping (PhD)

An optimality account of tone-vowel interaction in Northern Min

Matthewson, Lisa (PhD)

Determiner systems and quantificational strategies evidence from Salish

Rosen, Eric (MA)

The postposing construction in Japanese

1995 Alumni

Ọla, Ọlanikẹ (PhD)

Optimality in Benue-Congo prosodic phonology and morphology

Qu, Yanfeng (PhD)

Object noun phrase dislocation in Mandarin Chinese

Thompson, William (MA)

Paradigms and the acquisition of agreement morphology in German

Valerga, Vanessa N. (MA)

Phonological representation of Spanish vibrants

1994 Alumni

Choi, Sohee (MA)

Korean vowel harmony: an optimality account

Howett, Catherine (MA)

On the classification of predicates in Nłe?képmx (Thompson River Salish)

Jimmie, Mandy N. (MA)

A prosodic analysis of Nłek̉epmx reduplication

Li, Erica Wen (MA)

Passives in Mandarin Chinese

Roberts, Taylor (MA)

Subject and topic in St’át’imcets (Lillooet Salish)

1993 Alumni

Bessell, Nicola J. (PhD)

Towards a phonetic and phonological typology of post-velar articulation

Hunt, Katharine D. (PhD)

Clause structure, agreement and case in Gitksan

1992 Alumni

Blake, Susan J. (MA)

Two aspects of Sliammon (ɬáʔamɪnqən) phonology: glide/obstruent alternation and vowel length

Millard, David (MA)

The prosodic structure of Finnish and the theory of phonological government

1991 Alumni

Fee, E. Jane (PhD)

Underspecification, parameters, and the acquisition of vowels

1990 Alumni

Remnant, Daphne E. (MA)

Tongue root articulations: a case study of Lillooet

1988 Alumni

Andrews, Christina (MA)

Lexical phonology of Chilcotin

Bagemihl, Bruce (PhD)

Alternate phonologies and morphologies

Paradis, Johanne C. (MA)

The syllable structure of Japanese

1987 Alumni

Davis, Henry (PhD)

The acquisition of the English auxiliary system and its relation to linguistic theory

1986 Alumni

Nakata, Masahiko (MA)

Verbal compounds in Japanese: implications for morphological theory

Roberge, Yves (PhD)

The syntactic recoverability of null arguments

1985 Alumni

Elesseily, Nagat H. (MA)

Subject extraction from embedded clauses in standard Arabic

Ross, Martin (MA)

Japanese lexical phonology and morphology

1984 Alumni

Belvin, Robert S. (MA)

Nisgha syntax and the ergativity hypothesis

Thompson, Wendy (MA)

Reduplication in Nisgha

1982 Alumni

Hébert, Yvonne M. (PhD)

Transitivity in (Nicola Lake) Okanagan

Tse, Sou-Mee (PhD)

The acquisition of Cantonese phonology

1981 Alumni

Preuss, Renate Jutta (MA)

Colour naming in young children

1980 Alumni

Chan, Marjorie K.M. (MA)

Zhong-shan Phonology: A Synchronic and Diachronic Analysis of a Yue (Cantonese) Dialect

Fee, E. Jane (MA)

The relationship between mothers’ pronominal modifications and children’s acquisition of pronominal reference

Morgan, Lawrence R. (MA)

Kootenay-Salishan linguistic comparison : a preliminary study

1979 Alumni

Suzuki, Yoshiko (MA)

Directional verbs in English and Japanese

Woods, Howard B. (PhD)

A socio-dialectology survey of the English spoken in Ottawa: a study of sociological and stylistic variation in Canadian English

1978 Alumni

Pattison, Lois Cornelia (MA)

Douglas Lake Okanagan: phonology and morphology

Placzek, James Anthony (MA)

Classifiers in standard Thai : a study of semantic relations between headwords and classifiers

1977 Alumni

de Wolf, Gaelan (MA)

Tlingit phonology in a generative framework : an examination of phonological processes and abstract representation

Gerdts, Donna B. (MA)

Dialect survey of Halkomelem Salish

Nokony, Alicia Alexander (MA)

Meaning development in one child acquiring Dakota-Sioux as a first language

1976 Alumni

Gibson, Deborah Jean (MA)

A thesis on eh

Sándi, Gábor (MA)

The phonology of the dialects of England

Stevenson, Roberta C. (MA)

The pronunciation of English in British Columbia : an analysis of the responses to the phonological section of the Linguistic Survey of B. C., Postal Questionnaire (PQ3)

Wigod, Rebecca (MA)

The matter of metaphor and its importance for linguistics

1975 Alumni

Hawes, Lorna Joy (MA)

Some theories of language typology and language change

Matsuda, Hiroshi (MA)

A transformational study of Japanese reflexivization

1974 Alumni

Beckett, Eleanor (MA)

A linguistic analysis of Gurma

Machado-Holsti, Mina Estrela (MA)

Generative-transformational sketch of Portuguese syntax : a computer model

Ogawa, Toshimitsu Augustine (MA)

Study of Japanese relativization

1973 Alumni

Davison, Annie Souren (MA)

Interrogatives, negation and linguistic play in three children acquiring French as a first language

Powell, Mava Jo (MA)

Semantic analysis of ‘because’

1972 Alumni

Morshed, Abul Kalam Manzur (MA)

The phonological, morphological and syntactical patterns of standard colloquial Bengali and the Noakhali dialect

1971 Alumni

Ogawa, Nobuo (MA)

On the Japanese passive form

Swoboda, Leo John (MA)

Lillooet phonology, texts and dictionary

1969 Alumni

Kenwood, Christopher Michael (MA)

A study of slang and informal usage in the newspaper

1967 Alumni

Olaya, Norma Peralta (MA)

A phonological grammar of a dialect of Ilokano

Peralta-Pineda, Ponciano Bendiola (MA)

Tagalog transformational syntax : a preliminary statement

Staume, Guido (MA)

A glottochronological analysis of Latvian and Russian

Tan, Evangeline K. (MA)

The phonology of Tausug : a descriptive analysis

Yap, Fe Aldave (MA)

Synchronic analysis of Tagalog phonemes

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PhD Program

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Structure a course of study towards your specific intellectual and practical interests in the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) program at UBC Anthropology.

The PhD in Anthropology at UBC Vancouver is based upon a combination of residency, coursework, a comprehensive examination and dissertation, and is expected to be completed within six years. A new comprehensive examination guideline has been approved in Spring 2023.

PhD Degree Requirements

A student first gains full standing as a doctoral candidate within the Department by completing the following requirements:

• 24 months residency
• Minimum 18 credits of coursework
• A research proposal approved by the supervisory committee
• Satisfactory performance in the comprehensive examination

Coursework requirements for the PhD

The minimum 18 credits of coursework normally includes:

• ANTH 506 (the pro-seminar) (3 credits)
• ANTH 500 (History of Anthropological Thought), (6 credits)
• An advanced methodology course in the appropriate area (ANTH 516, 517, or 518) (3 credits)
• Two additional courses (6 credits)

If students have previously completed these courses, they should consult with their supervisor to determine an alternative course. Students who have taken an equivalent course to ANTH 500 at the MA level at a different university may apply to the Anthropology Graduate Students Committee (AGSC) to be released from the requirement.

Students may also be required as a condition of admission to take other courses to gain mastery of core subjects in the discipline. Up to 12 credits may be taken in the form of supervised reading courses where appropriate graduate seminars are not available and upon the agreement of instructors. The 18 credits of core courses will normally be in anthropology at the graduate level. The Supervisory Committee may require additional coursework, beyond 18 credits, including courses at the undergraduate level, in order to prepare students for research in their chosen field.

All doctoral students are required to complete a comprehensive examination successfully. After passing the comprehensive examination and defending the research proposal, the students reach candidacy.

Once they have attained candidacy, students are “ABD” (so have completed all degree requirements but the dissertation). They then undertake a substantive independent research project normally based in large part on field research which forms the basis of their dissertation. The candidate completes the degree upon successfully defending their dissertation in the University doctoral defence.

The major requirement for the PhD is completion of a research dissertation meeting UBC Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies requirements.

As soon as possible after admission to the program, and no later than the end of the first term of study, the student must meet with their Supervisory Committee to complete the Graduate Program Record (available from the Graduate and Undergraduate Program Coordinator).

In addition to biographical information and details of work done prior to admission to the PhD program, it will include details of the proposed course of study i.e., course numbers, titles, credit values, and names of instructors).

Once completed, the Graduate Program Record form must be submitted to the Anthropology Graduate Studies Committee (AGSC) for review and approval.

The Graduate Program Record is a permanent guide and record of progress in which courses, grades, information on the dissertation, leaves, and other pertinent information is entered. The student and the Supervisory Committee must review the record at least once a year (in April) and preferably more often. Significant alterations in an approved program — including changes in coursework, dissertation topic, and committee membership as well as leaves — must be reported to the AGSC for approval before being recorded in the Graduate Program Record.

Leave policy

UBC Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies allows leaves for personal, or medical reasons. Graduate students may also receive parental leave for the birth or adoption of a child. Leave requests must be submitted by the Graduate Advisor and reviewed by the Dean of UBC Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.

PhD Dissertation

The PhD dissertation is intended to be an original and significant contribution to knowledge. In most cases, it entails original research involving fieldwork in the form of ethnographic studies, archaeological excavation and analysis, or archival research.

Supervisory Committees supervise and bear ultimate responsibility for approving research carried out by PhD candidates. It is critically important that PhD candidates keep their Supervisory Committees well informed of their research activities.

Evaluation of Progress

Students must meet with their Supervisory Committee at least once each term. The Supervisory Committee and course instructors prepare a detailed evaluation in April to submit to the Anthropology Graduate Studies Committee (AGSC). If in the considered opinion of the Supervisory Committee and the AGSC, a student does not make satisfactory progress, they may be required by the Department to withdraw. The AGSC notifies students and their Supervisory Committee of their status in the program each May.

Unless the circumstances are exceptional, a student who has not received a degree at the end of six winter sessions will be required to withdraw.

Extensions can only be granted by UBC Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies which must be petitioned by the AGSC on behalf of a student.

The Anthropology Standing Committee will review the file of any graduate student in the PhD program who receives a grade below 75% (“B”) in either the graduate seminar the History of Anthropological Thought (ANTH 500) or in one of the graduate methods courses (ANTH 516, 517, or 518).

Doctoral Comprehensive Examination

To demonstrate their comprehensive knowledge, students will prepare three sets of annotated bibliographies that engage with broad theoretical topics, an ethnographic area, or other topics appropriate for their subdiscipline. The reading lists will be developed by the student in consultation with their PhD committee, and each set will contain 30 sources with no more than 15 pages of annotations.

Under the supervision of their committee and based on their readings and annotations, students will proceed to write, within one month, two bibliographic essays of up to 25 pages each that identify the major contributions to two of the theoretical topics or ethnographic areas that they have studied. These written essays will be similar to those in the Annual Review of Anthropology in delineating current developments and main themes of research (including not only a critical analysis of existing literature, but also a discussion of emerging directions, gaps and opportunities). The student’s supervisory committee approves the bibliographic essays as completed to a competent standard. Once approved by the supervisory committee, the written essays are not subject to further examination. The student’s PhD committee should meet with the student to provide feedback on the essays in the period between their completion and their defence of their research proposal.

In consultation with their supervisory committee, students will prepare a research proposal of no more than 25 pages. The research proposal will summarize work on this topic, the significance of the proposed research, and will clearly describe how the work will be carried out. Once all the recommended revisions to the proposal have been completed, the student’s supervisory committee will recommend that the student proceed to a defence of their research proposal.

The student’s supervisory committee approves the readings, annotations, bibliographic essays and research proposal as completed (along with the research proposal), before recommending that the student proceed to the defence of their research proposal. (The supervisor must submit a memo to the AGSC chair and cc: the Graduate Program Coordinator to affirm this recommendation.) The supervisor may suggest two possible examiners from the Department of Anthropology, but the Examining Committee as a whole must be approved by the AGSC Chair. The supervisor is in charge of contacting the potential examiners. Examinations must be completed no later than three months prior to the G+PS deadline and must take place during one of the two examination periods:

• Spring- March/April/May during their second year
• Fall- October/November- final opportunity during students’ third year in the program

Advisors of students who are unable to complete their examinations during these periods may petition the AGSC for an extension or to hold the exam in another month. In any case, students must complete their exams before the end of the third year.

The format of the PhD proposal defence is similar to a dissertation defence. The Anthropology Graduate Studies Committee appoints two examiners with relevant expertise in the student’s area of research, as well as an examination chair. At the defence, the student gives a 20 to 30-minute presentation on their proposed research without reading from their proposal. The examiners then ask two rounds of questions about the proposed research. The examination chair may also ask for questions from the audience at the end of the first round of questions. After the second round of questions the student and audience leave the room while the examining committee deliberates. The examination is evaluated both on the strength of the written proposal and the strength of the student’s presentation. The committee may: (1) decide to pass the research proposal without revisions; (2) ask for minor or major revisions either under the supervision of the student’s committee or under the supervision of the entire examining committee; or (3) fail the student on the examination. The examination chair may cast a deciding vote if the committee is divided in their assessment. If a student fails their examination, they may revise their research proposal and schedule a second examination, which would be their final opportunity. Students who successfully complete the defence of their research proposal will be advanced to candidacy and are approved to begin their dissertation research, subject to ethical review approval if relevant.

These new provisions for the comprehensive exam process in Anthropology will go into effect as of March 1, 2023 . Students who began their PhD studies in 2022 or earlier have the option of taking a written comprehensive examination under the previous provisions if they so choose.

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Our Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in English allows you to structure a course of study that aligns with your specific research interests in English language or literature.

The PhD degree requirements in English at UBC Vancouver are based on residency and coursework, the candidacy process, and a dissertation. We expect students to complete the degree within five to six years.

Program Overview

All PhD students are considered full-time and are not eligible to undertake their degree on a part-time basis.

• Students who enter the PhD program having already earned an MA must remain in residence in the Lower Mainland (Vancouver area) for two winter sessions of PhD study (roughly two years).
• Students who have been permitted to transfer via fast-track from the UBC English MA program to the UBC English PhD program require at least one winter session of residence in the Lower Mainland following the transfer.
• Under normal circumstances, the PhD should be completed in five years, although UBC allows up to six years.

For more information about the program completion time, including rules about leaves of absence, registration, and employment status, please consult the graduate handbook.

Students entering the PhD program with first-class MA degrees in English will normally take 15 credits of coursework at the 500 level.

Students transferring from the MA to the PhD or entering the PhD directly from an honours BA will be asked to take a minimum number of credits determined by the Graduate Committee.

All PhD students are required to take the Research Methods course, ENGL 500B. This pass/fail course introduces students to the forms and protocols of PhD research. It counts towards the 15 credits required for admission to candidacy.

PhD programs are individually planned in consultation with the Chair of the Graduate Program.

For detailed information about coursework such as how to take courses at other western universities under the Western Dean's Agreement, how to sign up for a Directed Reading course (ENGL 547), and rules about taking courses outside the English department, please consult the graduate handbook.

Doctoral candidacy process

In addition to coursework in the first year of the program, the candidacy process includes the field list and oral examination, the candidacy paper, and the prospectus.

Graduate students and supervisors should consult the graduate handbook for a convenient year-by-year summary and detailed step-by-step explanation of the candidacy process for PhD students.

Field list and oral examination

In consultation with the Pro tem committee, the student will prepare a general field list of primary and secondary material designed to ensure that they have sufficient knowledge of their field of interest. The Pro tem committee will examine knowledge of this field list in a two-hour oral examination.

Candidacy paper

After the field examination, the student will begin working with the Pro tem committee to develop an individually focused research topic or question that allows the student to conceptualize the thesis.

The student will then write a 20-25 page paper based on this topic.

With the completion of the field examination and qualifying paper, the Pro tem committee is dissolved. Then the student, in consultation with the graduate chair, invites an appropriate faculty member to supervise their prospectus and thesis.

Together, the student and supervisor establish the full committee, which generally consists of the candidate's supervisor and two other Department of English Language and Literatures members.

The thesis prospectus, prepared in consultation with the supervisory committee, is then submitted to the Graduate Committee for approval.

Candidacy review

Students who achieve a minimum of 85% GPA in their courses at UBC and who pass all stages of their candidacy exams will automatically be recommended for advancement to candidacy. For other students, a conference on their progress may be deemed necessary by the graduate chair in consultation with their supervisor.

For detailed information about the field list and oral examination, candidacy paper, prospectus and candidacy review, please consult the graduate handbook.

Second language requirement

All new PhD students must demonstrate a reading knowledge of a second language relevant to their particular area of research. In consultation with the Pro tem supervisor, the graduate chair will determine whether a student has already met the second-language requirement.

Students who have not met the requirement may do so by completing an approved language or literature course (it may be possible to do this as an auditor), or by passing an examination, provided that an examiner acceptable to the department is available.

While only one language is required, students should, of course, consider the scholarly and professional requirements of their chosen area when developing their language skills.

Doctoral progress report

Each May beginning in the student's second year in the doctoral program, both the student and their supervisor will be asked to write a brief report indicating the nature and extent of work completed on the candidacy process or thesis and any circumstances impeding progress on either.

PhD supervision

The student is assigned a Pro tem supervisor from their point of entry into the program.

By the end of the first year, the full Pro tem committee will be in place.

The committee members will guide the student through the qualifying process, beginning in the first year with the field examination. They also serve as academic mentors on all aspects of the program and the department.

The Pro tem committee is dissolved after the candidacy paper is passed. A new thesis supervisory committee is then constituted, which can (but need not) include members of the Pro tem committee. The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies must approve thesis supervisory committee members from outside UBC.

PhD Co-op (Optional)

What is Co-op?

The Arts Co-op Program offers students enriched educational experiences for personal and professional growth. Co-op is a high-impact educational program that allows you to alternate dissertation-writing terms with work terms, during which you gain meaningful paid work experience. We work with a diverse range of community partners and sectors to provide transformative workplace learning for co-op students.

The Arts PhD Co-op Program allows you to explore different career options, while gaining paid, professional work experience, guided training and reflection on career options, and a network of contacts. Some students are able to secure work terms that are relevant to their dissertation research, while others choose to pursue work experience that diversify their expertise and give them range. Students complete three work terms of 4 months each over the two to three years after achieving candidacy.

To read more about previous and current PhD Co-op students’ experiences, please refer to our ‘success stories’ on Jon Newell (English) , Pavlina Pajot (English) , and Henry John (History) , or see the 2019 update on UBC English’s co-op program for PhD students .  Henry John (History) also published a piece in Inside Higher Education about his experience in the program.

Applying to Arts Co-op

The application window for PhD Co-op is open once per year, and usually closes in the first week of October.

You are eligible to apply to the UBC English PhD Co-op Program if you have achieved candidacy (or are expecting to achieve candidacy by the time you begin your co-op term, typically in January of your third year in the PhD program). You also must have two years of PhD study left, in which to schedule three 4-month work terms. You cannot begin work-terms in the Co-op Program without advancing to candidacy first: that is, Co-op students must be ABD (all but dissertation) before their first Co-op work term.

SSHRC-holders and international students are both eligible to apply and go through the same application process.

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Doctoral Deadlines

There are four deadlines doctoral candidates must meet in order to be eligible for the respective end/graduation date.The Doctoral Examination deadlines are suggested in order to guide doctoral candidates through each step of the doctoral examination process in time to meet requirements for specific program end dates or for graduation ceremonies. Please note that if deadlines are not met, doctoral candidates may not be able to fulfill requirements for intended program completion dates or for graduation ceremonies.

Oral defences are not normally held between mid-December and mid-January. Candidates on extensions ending December 31 must complete oral examinations before the blackout period.

It is in the best interest of the candidate to meet the deadline for each step of the doctoral examination process.

All deadlines provided below assume that the candidate wants his/her degree conferred at the earliest time. To meet deadlines all forms and documentation must be received within usual business hours, typically before 4pm PDT.

Spring 2024 Graduation

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Introduction

What is copyright, what is fair dealing and can i use it for my thesis, when to seek permission, how to obtain permission, what to include in permission requests, unable to get permission, citations & bibliographies, student responsibility, removing images, non-exclusive licences, circle submission, publishing your thesis, creative commons licensing.

All UBC graduate students are required to submit a copy of their thesis to UBC’s institutional repository ( cIRcle ), where it will be made available to the public. Submission into cIRcle requires that you sign a license that gives UBC the rights necessary to make the thesis available to the public. The specifics can be found at cIRcle’s  License & Copyright  page. You are personally responsible for ensuring that your thesis complies with Canadian copyright law, and the cIRcle license requires that you confirm that you have done so.

This guide is designed to provide you with a starting point for your understanding of and compliance with your responsibilities.

Back To Top

Copyright is the sole and exclusive right of a copyright owner to produce, reproduce, perform, publish, adapt, translate and telecommunicate (e.g., post on the internet, email, etc.) a work, and to control the circumstances in which others may do any of these things.

Copyright law in Canada protects a wide range of works . Producing, reproducing, performing, publishing, adapting, translating and telecommunicating a “substantial” part of someone else’s copyrighted work is copyright infringement, unless (a) you fall within one of the exemptions set out in the Copyright Act , or (b) you have written permission from the copyright owner.

What is a “substantial” part of a work depends on numerous considerations, including:

• the quantity of what is being copied,
• whether what is being copied forms a material or essential part of the work, and
• what purpose the copied portion will be put to.

It is commonly understood that, for most purposes, copying more than a few sentences of a literary work, a few words of a short poem, a few bars of music, or a few seconds of a film is a “substantial” portion of the work. Also, copying any important part of a painting, graph or table, etc., is a “substantial” portion of a work.

Copyright protection comes into effect as soon as a work is created; there is no requirement that the work be registered or that the word “copyright” or the symbol © appear on the work. Accordingly, works that are publicly available on the Internet (such as images found via Google) are treated the same way under copyright law as materials distributed in any other way. In Canada, generally speaking, copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author, regardless of who holds the copyright.

This means that, if you have started writing your thesis, then your draft is already protected by copyright, which gives you control over the ways in which it can and cannot be legally used by others. At the same time, this also means that you need to think very carefully about how you are using the works of others, and about whether or not you will need permission to quote from or include these works in your thesis.

(For more information about copyright in general, please see the Basics FAQ and the Copyright Guidelines for UBC Faculty, Staff, and Students .)

Fair dealing is one of the user rights in the Copyright Act that allows any person to make a copy of a copyrighted work. In order for fair dealing to apply to your use of others’ works in your thesis, (a) the copying must be for one or more of the following purposes: research, private study, education, satire, parody, criticism, review, or news reporting, and (b) the copying must be fair.

When copying copyrighted works for use in a thesis, such copying is primarily for the purposes of research, criticism, and/or review. Any fair dealing for the purpose of criticism or review must mention the source and, if given in the source, the name of the author or creator of the work. Fair dealing should never be used merely for illustrative purposes or enhancing the content of the thesis without engaging with the third-party copyrighted materials for the fair dealing purposes listed above.

Sometimes you may hear that “copying for research or educational purposes is always fair” but this can be a misleading oversimplification. Ultimately, the fairness of the dealing is determined by a court of law if and when the rights holder makes a claim of infringement against the party that copied the work.

To determine whether a particular instance of copying may be considered “fair” for the purposes of fair dealing, the Supreme Court of Canada has stated that all relevant factors need to be considered, including the following, which comprise what is sometimes referred-to as the “six-factor” fair dealing test:

• the purpose of the proposed copying, including whether it is for research, private study, education, satire, parody, criticism, review or news reporting;
• the character of the proposed copying, including whether it involves single or multiple copies, and whether the copy is destroyed after it is used for its specific intended purpose;
• the amount of the dealing from the individual user’s perspective, including the proportion of the work that is copied and the importance of that excerpt in relation to the whole work; this is often referred to as a “short excerpt” and must contain no more of the work than is required in order to achieve the fair dealing purpose;
• alternatives to copying the work, including whether there is a non-copyrighted equivalent available;
• the nature of the work, including whether it is published or unpublished; and
• the effect of the copying on the work, including whether the copy will compete with the commercial market of the original work.

There is no specific Canadian case law on how the six-factor test would apply to use of third-party content in theses that are freely distributed on the Internet and what kind of copying would be permitted. The CAUT Guidelines for the Use of Copyrighted Materia l is a useful resource to learn about the six-factor test and to help determine if using others’ works in your thesis might be considered fair. For more information on fair dealing in general, including the University’s approach to determining whether something is a “short excerpt”, please see UBC’s Fair Dealing Requirements for UBC Faculty and Staff .

In summary, if your use of others’ work in your thesis is “fair”, then you do not need to ask for permission to use it. If your use of the work would not be “fair” then you do need to seek permission to use it. As a graduate student, you are responsible for the content of your thesis and, thus, for determining whether your proposed use of copyrighted works qualifies as fair dealing or whether you need to seek permission. The University is unable to provide you with legal advice in this regard.

UBC Library offers workshops and consultation to support graduate students in the application of these guidelines. Workshops are offered in collaboration with UBC Library Research Commons while consultations can be booked online or by emailing [email protected] .

Because the University requires you to submit your thesis to cIRcle (which means that it is published online) and also to submit your thesis to Library and Archives Canada, it is important for you to understand that any improper use of the fair dealing right by you may constitute copyright infringement and risks exposing you, and the University, to legal liability from copyright rightsholders.

In addition, you may wish to publish your thesis (or parts of it) in an academic journal. Please note some publishers may not be satisfied with copyright works used pursuant to fair dealing and may require authors to obtain permission for third-party copyrighted materials prior to publication.

You should seek permission if your thesis contains any of the following and you are unsure if the work can be used pursuant to fair dealing, as described in the previous section:

• Images of any form that have been obtained from copyrighted sources. This includes any tables, figures, maps, graphs, photographs, screenshots, drawings, logos, video screen captures, etc. that have been obtained from websites, newspapers, journals, books, brochures, professors’ lecture notes, etc.
• Since you will typically be using the whole of the copyrighted image (as opposed to a small portion of the image), you should be particularly careful in undertaking your fair dealing analysis or obtain permission before including it in your thesis.
• Altering an image does not necessarily remove the need to seek permission nor change the fair dealing analysis. Common alterations include cropping, re-sizing, modifying colours, and annotating with text, arrows, and other visual call-outs.
• Keep in mind that just because something is freely available on the web does not necessarily mean that you have permission to reproduce it. Always check the Terms of Use or copyright licence information on the website.
• Long quotations or excerpts from any one source. Common sources of quotations include books, academic journals, newspapers, magazines, short stories, plays, and poems.
• Articles or parts of articles that you wrote and previously published in a journal to which you assigned copyright. Academic publishing agreements commonly require authors to assign their copyright to the publisher. Refer to  Including Published Material in a Thesis or Dissertation  for additional requirements from Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.
• Material co-authored with others. Each co-author shares copyright and must consent to your use of the work if you are seeking permission to use it.
• Scripts and recordings of any performance.
• Translations of copyrighted work.
• Testing instruments such as standardized tests, questionnaires, forms, and surveys.

Important : The list above is not exhaustive. If your use of copyrighted material is not described above, that does not necessarily mean that you do not need undertake a fair dealing analysis or to seek permission.

Seeking permission is a straightforward process, but obtaining responses from copyright owners can take a long time. You are strongly encouraged to send out your permission requests as early as possible.

Identify the Copyright Owner

The first step in the process is to identify the copyright owner. Usually you will be able to identify the owner somewhere on the work by looking for the copyright symbol ©, which should have the copyright owner’s name next to it. You’ll often find this at the beginning of a book, at the side of a photograph or at the bottom of a web page.

Permission from Individuals

If the copyright owner is an individual, then the next step is to email or write to that individual, explaining how and why you want to use the work and requesting permission. The permission should be in writing; an email message will suffice. It’s also a good idea to keep a record of who gave the permission, what was permitted, the date, and how to contact the person who gave the permission. (For more information about what information to include in your permission requests, see the next section of this guide.)

Permission from Commercial Publishers

If the copyright owner is a commercial publisher, the fastest course of action is often to search for the work in question at the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC). The CCC handles permissions for a large number of publishers, and permission to include images in theses can often be obtained through the CCC website swiftly and at no cost.

If you cannot obtain permission through the CCC, then the next step is to check the publisher’s website. Many publishers will require that you submit your request directly to their permissions department, while others will require that you use an online form.

When you arrive at the website, look for a link that says “Rights and Permissions” (or something similar), then read through the available information to determine the correct method for requesting permission.

Permission from Journals

If the copyright owner is an academic journal (or an academic association/society that publishes a journal), then you may be able to obtain permission through the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), as discussed above. If permission is not available through the CCC, then you should check the journal’s website, which may provide one or more of the following:

• Advance permission for specific uses. For example, The Journal of Biological Chemistry provides advance permission for non-commercial use.
• Advance permission to journal authors who have signed over copyright
• Information on how to request permission
• Information on uses that are specifically prohibited

If you can’t locate any information about copyright and permissions on the journal’s website, then visit the website of the company or organization that publishes the journal.

If permission to use copyrighted material is given on a website, then print out or save an electronic copy of the web page that states this and keep it for your records. Note, saving a link to the page is not sufficient, as the link may break or the content of the website may change.

Proof of Permission

You should keep copies of all letters and forms granting you permission to use copyrighted material. These copies are for your own records; do not include them in your thesis or dissertation.

As mentioned above, email permissions are acceptable. The best possible proof of permission is one of the following:

• a completed copy of the Permission to Use Copyrighted Material form, or
• an original signed letter on the copyright owner’s letterhead.

Originals are best, though scanned copies work well too.

For more information about seeking permission, see UBC Copyright Basics FAQ 1.16 .

Include the following information in your requests.

Introduce yourself clearly.

Tell the copyright owner that you are a graduate student preparing a thesis or dissertation for submission as part of the requirements for your degree at the University of British Columbia.

Identify the work you are seeking permission to use.

Give standard reference information for the work you wish to use, including figure/table number, if any, and page numbers. You should briefly describe the context in which you propose to use the work in your thesis.

Tell the copyright owner where their work will be distributed.

• that your thesis will be publicly available in UBC’s online digital repository, and
• that you will be granting non-exclusive licences to UBC and to Library and Archives Canada.

You, of course, will not know at the time you are asking permission, whether your thesis will be published in an academic journal. If you believe that it is a realistic possibility, you may wish to ask the copyright owner’s permission to use their work in the published version of your thesis.

Send the copyright owner information about and a copy of the cIRcle licence agreement:

• [cIRcle Licence Agreement – downloadable PDF http://hdl.handle.net/2429/59877 ]
• [cIRcle Licence Agreement – online submission form https://circle.ubc.ca/submissions/license-form ]

Ask for specific action.

• Request a reply by a given date.
• Offer to send the copyright owner a copy of your completed work.

Keep copies.

• Keep copies of request letters and all correspondence with the copyright owner.

When you are unable to obtain permission or there is a charge for obtaining permission, you must either (1) remove the copyrighted material and insert the text described below; or (2) replace the material with a different work for which permission is either obtainable or not required (such as works that are covered by Creative Commons licenses or that are in the public domain ).

If you have removed copyrighted material from your thesis and not replaced it, you must insert the following:

• A statement that the material has been removed because of copyright restrictions
• A description of the material and the information it contained, plus a link to an online source if one is available
• A full citation of the original source of the material

Example: Figure 3 has been removed due to copyright restrictions. It was a diagram of the apparatus used in performing the experiment, showing the changes made by the investigating team. Original source: Wu, G. and Thompson, J.R. (2008) Effect of Ketone Bodies on Dairy Cattle. Biochem J. 255:139-144.

The brief description of the removed figure is important, as it gives the reader a chance to follow the thesis argument without needing to look up the actual figures. If possible, including a link to an online source is also very useful.

You must include full citations for any copyrighted material in your thesis or dissertation regardless of source. Each citation must include the copyright symbol, name of the copyright owner (who may or may not be the author), and, if applicable, a statement that the use of the material or adaptation (in the case of adapted graphics) is by permission of the copyright owner.

Examples of direct citations to copyright owners:

• Image title (© 2001 Jane Doe, by permission)
• Graph Title (© 2003 John Smith, adapted with permission)
• Poem Title (© 2005 Jane Doe, by permission)
• Testing Instrument Title (© 2007 Company Name, by permission)

Citations from published works should follow your chosen citation style (e.g., APA, MLA, etc.) but include reference to the specific page. Examples of sources from published works:

• Table 1 from © Author, A., Author, B., & Author, C. (2007). Book Title. City: Publisher. Page 45. By permission from publisher.
• Figure 4.1 from © Author, A., Author, B., & Author, C (2009). Article Title. Journal Title, 38(2), 186-204. Page 191. Adapted with permission from publisher.
• Photo Title from © Author, A. & Author, B. (2012, May 5). Title of Web Article. Website Title. Retrieved from URL. By permission from author.

Sometimes copyright owners will ask you to use a specific wording in your citation. If so, it’s important to follow their instructions exactly, word for word.

Otherwise, craft your citations in accordance with your degree program’s preferred style guide. If you are unsure about which style guide to use, ask your supervisor. If you need help with using a particular style guide, check out the Library’s “How to Cite” guide or contact the subject librarian for your discipline. If you need help with citing images in particular, check out UBC’s Image Citation Guide .

If you have any questions about copyright or permissions, please begin by consulting the resources available on the Copyright at UBC website. You are also invited to send your copyright or permissions questions to [email protected] .

If you have questions related to the thesis-writing process, please review the following resources from Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies:

• Resources for Thesis Preparation and Checking
• Final Dissertation & Thesis Submission
• Graduate Pathways to Success (GPS) Program

My supervisor said that I don’t need permission to include copyrighted images in my thesis, so can I submit my thesis without seeking permission?

Information

As the author of your thesis, you are responsible for ensuring that your use of copyrighted images and other material is compliant with Canadian copyright law.

Indeed, when you submit the final copy of your thesis, you must sign the  cIRcle Non-Exclusive Distribution License  confirming that if you have copyrighted material in your thesis, you are either using that material under an exception available to you under the Copyright Act (such as fair dealing) or you have obtained permission to use it.

Can I just remove any copyrighted images from my thesis before submitting it, so I don’t need to worry about seeking permission?

For the reasons set out in the next paragraph, your thesis should be as complete as possible. Removal of material should only be an option if you are denied permission, if an unreasonable fee will be charged for use of the material, or if you receive no response from the copyright owner after making a reasonable effort at contact.

Theses are scholarly documents, and students are expected to complete them in accordance with scholarly best practices and their program’s requirements. Furthermore, by submitting your thesis to cIRcle , UBC’s digital repository, it will be publicly accessible online, so you want it to be as complete as possible to ensure that it appears professional, especially to future colleagues and employers. Your thesis is not only the culmination and crowning achievement of your graduate degree, but also the main surviving record of the work you completed during your degree. It is in your best interests to ensure that it is as complete as possible. By omitting images from your thesis, you run the risk of obfuscating the very arguments that you devoted so much time and effort to creating.

I know that I need to sign the cIRcle Non-Exclusive Distribution License before I can submit the final copy of my thesis, but I’m not entirely sure what I’m agreeing to. What exactly is a “non-exclusive licence,” and why do I need to grant such a licence to UBC in order to submit my thesis?

You own the copyright for your thesis, which means that you have the right to produce, reproduce, perform, publish, adapt, translate and telecommunicate your thesis, and you have the right to control the circumstances in which others may do any of these things.

By signing the UBC Thesis Licence Agreement, you are giving the University the permission to publish and archive your thesis in cIRcle.

Because this licence (or permission) is “non-exclusive,” you retain all of your rights as the copyright owner, and you may grant similar rights to others, at any time. This is in contrast to an “exclusive” licence, which would mean that the University alone would have the right publish and archive your thesis.

What is cIRcle, and where can I get help with submitting my thesis to cIRcle electronically?

cIRcle is an open access digital repository for research and teaching materials created by the UBC community and its partners. Its aim is to showcase and preserve UBC’s unique intellectual output by making content freely available to anyone, anywhere via the web.

Apart from theses and dissertations, cIRcle contains articles, conference and workshop papers, technical reports and working papers, books, datasets, learning objects, multimedia and audio-visual materials including podcasts, webcasts and more.

The University, via Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, requires you to submit your thesis to cIRcle electronically. For information on how to submit, please see the cIRcle instructions for electronic thesis submission.

As of September 2012, you can get in-person assistance with the thesis-submission process at the Koerner Library Research Commons .

If you have specific questions regarding cIRcle, please contact [email protected] . For questions related to your thesis submission, or to have your cIRcle login authorized for submission, please contact [email protected] .

You own the copyright to your thesis and are free to publish your thesis if you wish. However, if your thesis includes any copyrighted works (e.g. figures, tables, etc.) that you did not create and you are not able to use this work under an exception available to you under the Copyright Act (such as fair dealing), then you will likely need to obtain permission from the copyright owners in order to publish them.

This is true even if you have already obtained permission to use the works in your thesis, as the act of publishing your thesis would count as a different use of the works in question, and would therefore require separate permissions. With this in mind, as you make your initial requests for copyright permissions for your thesis, you may wish to think about asking for permission should you decide to revise your thesis for publication as a journal article or book at a later date.

The Scholarly Communications @ UBC website contains a wealth of information about scholarly publishing, including valuable resources for authors and information about how to make your work open access .

Also, you should be aware that students who have graduated may be contacted by publishing companies that have an interest in publishing their thesis. These companies often contact authors directly. You are free to grant permission, but you should research the company first to ensure that it is a reputable academic publisher. There are usually discussions among former students online that can give you an insight into the value of publishing with a particular company.

Creative Commons (CC) licences provide copyright owners with a simple and clear way to grant others permission to access and (depending on your preferences) to share and adapt your work for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

By applying a CC licence to your thesis, you can enhance the ease with which others can share and reuse your work. For more information about the various licences and what they allow, please see this useful overview .

To apply a CC licence to your thesis, you can simply select your desired licence when you submit your thesis to cIRcle (see: cIRcle’s submission instructions , step 3.7).

To apply a CC license to your other work, you can use the “Choose a License” form on the CC website. This form helps you choose a licence based on your preferences and then generates the appropriate text to apply to print works, as well as the HTML code to apply to online works.

In addition to information on the public domain available on the Copyright at UBC website, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries has published a FAQ on term extension that is available on their website. [Read More]

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