AUAS Library
Publishing Thesis in the HBO Kennisbank
Finished your thesis? The AUAS Library can publish your AUAS thesis so it will be available worldwide.
If you have successfully completed your studies, you can let others see what you have achieved. You can have your thesis included in the HBO Kennisbank (HBO Knowledge Base), which will make it findable for everyone via search engines such as Google. You can also make easy reference to your thesis, because it is provided with a weblink.
How can you get your thesis included in the HBO Kennisbank?
Many degree programmes offer to include theses with a grade seven or higher in the HBO Kennisbank. This is subject to permission from you and your client organisation. To provide this permission, you need to sign the following permission form when you submit your thesis to the Programme Office.
Does your degree programme not participate in this scheme?
Then contact the AUAS Library: Ask the Library.
What issues do you need to take into account?
Our advice is not to include your phone number and student number in your thesis, but as the author you may choose whether to publish this information. If you include your e-mail address in your thesis, keep in mind that your HvA e-mail address will no longer be available some time after graduation.
If your thesis is published online, it is your responsibility to protect the privacy and interests of your client (both the organisation and individual persons), respondents, yourself and other involved parties. Discuss this beforehand with your client and your degree programme so that you can already take this into account when writing your thesis.
Does your thesis contain details with regard to other persons (for instance people you have interviewed) or non-public company data? Then you may only publish your thesis with the explicit permission of these persons and/or companies. Permission is not required if the data is anonymised and can no longer be linked to specific persons and/or companies.
Anonymisation
You can replace people’s names with a combination of characters or a fictitious name. You can also anonymise the places of residence and dates of birth of clients and respondents.
Insert text in appendices
If your thesis contains a larger volume of confidential data, you can place this in a separate appendix which is not published. In this case you state in the thesis that this appendix is not available for reasons of confidentiality.
Remove sections
You can remove smaller text sections and state at the points in question that the information is of a confidential nature and has been removed.
N.B.: If you make your thesis suitable for publication by removing or adjusting data, you need to state on the title page that the version at hand has been amended / rendered suitable for publication.
Delayed publication (embargo)
Companies sometimes give permission for publication of certain information after expiry of an embargo period. You can specify an embargo period if this is applicable. If the information is confidential for a limited period only, then state the date on which this embargo period expires when completing the permission form for online publication. See 4. EMBARGO.
When writing your thesis you must respect the copyright of other parties. Among other things, this means correctly citing your sources and getting permission for any use of (visual) material, for instance in the form of a Creative Commons licence.
If you use visual material for illustrative purposes, for instance for the cover of your thesis, this is permitted if
- it is your own work; or
- the work has been published under a Creative Commons licence; or
- the copyright has expired; or
- you have permission from the author of the work.
For more information, see the webpage on Copyright for students.
It is up to you to decide for how long you wish to publish your thesis. There are two options: for seven years and for an unlimited period.
Irrespective of your choice, you can withdraw your permission at any time, after which your thesis will be removed from the website.
Is your thesis subject to an embargo? This means that your thesis may only be published after a certain time, for instance because it uses company data that should only be made public at a later date.
It is possible to postpone publication of your thesis for a maximum of six years.
Do you wish to permit others to disseminate, share and/or edit (parts of) your thesis? You can do this by applying a Creative Commons licence to your thesis.
The CC BY licence is the most frequently used option: in addition to reading, sharing and editing it also permits commercial use. You can also choose a variant that excludes commercial use. If you would like help choosing a licence, see the website of Creative Commons Nederland .
Whatever licence you choose, you retain the copyright: you can always reuse your thesis, including for commercial purposes.
If you do not choose a Creative Commons licence then others may read or cite your thesis, but they must ask your permission to disseminate or reuse it.
The Library can remove your thesis from the website at a later date if you request this, but because a CC licence cannot be withdrawn it is possible that other parties may continue to disseminate your thesis.
You will be asked to add an abstract (a brief summary) of 150 to 250 words to your thesis. This will be displayed when the thesis is published on the HBO Kennisbank.
A thesis can contain other types of material (i.e. not mainly text with illustrations) as an appendix: one example would be a short film that forms part of the thesis. Unfortunately it is not possible to publish this type of appendix on the HBO Kennisbank as part of your thesis. If you wish to publish such material, use the platforms intended for this purpose; in the case of audiovisual material this may be the AUAS facility MyVideo, YouTube or VIMEO. Then include the link in your thesis.