All students in a thesis degree program shall present and defend a thesis embodying the results of their research. The topic of the thesis must have been approved by the student’s supervisor.

For students in a master's degree program, the thesis should reveal that the student is able to work in a scholarly manner and is acquainted with the principal works published on the subject of the thesis. As far as possible, it should be an original contribution.

A doctoral thesis must embody the results of original investigations and analyses and be of such quality as to merit publication, meeting the standards of reputable scholarly publications. It must constitute a substantial contribution to the knowledge in the student's field of study.

The thesis should normally be written in English. In some departments, students may be permitted to write their thesis in a language other than English, provided that language has been approved for use by the supervisory committee, the department, and the Vice-Dean (or designate), FGSR. Theses written in a language other than English must have two abstracts, one in the language of the thesis, and the other in English.

It is the responsibility of both the student and the supervisor to be aware of any specific requirements of the student's department with respect to the student's thesis.

To ensure eligibility for the earliest convocation following completion of the thesis, each student must complete and have the thesis approved by the FGSR before the deadline date set by FGSR. Deadlines for submission of theses are found on the FGSR website
www.gradstudies.ualberta.ca/degreesuperv/thesis/submissiondeadlines.htm
Students must also ensure that they are registered in Thesis in their last registration prior to convocation. (See “Registering in THESIS at the End of Program”, "Section 6: Program Planning and Registration".)
Thesis format specifications are available at www.gradstudies.ualberta.ca/degreesuperv/

Following completion of the final oral examination at which the thesis is approved (or approved subject to minor revisions), the student shall make the appropriate revisions where necessary and submit the approved thesis to the FGSR within six months of the date of the final oral examination. Departments may impose earlier deadlines for submitting revisions. If the thesis is not submitted to the FGSR within the six-month time limit, the student will be considered to have withdrawn from the program. Only in exceptional circumstances, upon the recommendation of the department, will FGSR approve an extension to this period.
After this time, the student must apply and be re-admitted to the FGSR before the thesis can be submitted and approved.

A thesis should be made freely available to the public as soon as it has been successfully defended and submitted to FGSR.

It is the responsibility of the supervisor and the supervisory committee to inform the student of public access to thesis results.

It is university policy that a thesis be made freely available to the public as soon as it has been successfully defended. A general policy of “open access” is also embraced by Tri-Council and other funding agencies.

However, it is recognized that circumstances may arise that justify restricting access to a thesis for a specified period of time initially up to a maximum of one  year (also known as an embargo period). The likely circumstances for restricting access to a thesis are:

• Contractual, where a contract with a company, funding agency or sponsor requires that the research conducted for the thesis must remain confidential for a specified period of time;

• Patent Pending, where a patent application has been lodged by the student, or by another on the student’s behalf, relating to a discovery or novel method in a thesis;

• Publication Pending, where a student has a contract with a publisher indicating that the publisher regards the electronic availability of a thesis as a prior publication and will reject any work based on a publicly available thesis, or for a student who has not yet obtained a publishing contract, where a student can show that the practice of the likely publishers in his or her discipline is to consider the electronic availability of a thesis as a prior publication; and

• Ethical Confidentiality, where a thesis requires an embargo period in order for additional steps to be taken to remove information from the thesis where electronic access to the thesis without amendment could endanger the physical or mental health or the safety of people.

Students wanting to restrict public access to their theses for a temporary period of time must submit a written request with supporting documentation. The request must be made at the time of submission of the thesis to FGSR, for a period of up to one year. A Request to Restrict Access to a Thesis form can be found in the Forms Cabinet on the FGSR website.

At the end of an approved embargo period, the thesis will become accessible. An accessible thesis can be located by a Google search or other internet search engine.

It is a student’s responsibility to contact the Dean of FGSR if there are any extenuating circumstances that warrant an extension to the original embargo period.

With respect to the use or inclusion of copyright works within a thesis, readers of this manual are reminded that university policy requires compliance with copyright law.

(FGSR Council, 2011/01/19)