A student who seeks to embargo a thesis or dissertation should review  PROV-014: Submission of Electronic Theses & Dissertations policy and thoroughly discussed electronic submission options with their advisor and department chair before concluding that an embargo is desired.  If the group agrees an embargo is warranted, the student should send a statement to the advisor outlining a substantive rationale for the embargo and the desired end date (within five years) after which the thesis or dissertation will become publicly accessible. The advisor and department chair will review the petition and forward it to the Assistant Dean of Graduate Education with their comments.

The Dean’s office will review the petition and notify the student and department of the outcome of the petition and alert the University Library to any approved embargo period so that it can work with the student to upload the thesis or dissertation to LIBRA with the embargo in place.

Please note the following:

▪ In order to avoid delays in uploading theses and dissertations to LIBRA that will prevent them from graduating, students who are considering an embargo should discuss this option with their advisors and submit petitions at least six weeks in advance of the LIBRA submission deadline for the semester in which the degree will be conferred.

▪ Requests for embargos should address significant and concrete circumstances. General concerns about the prospect of publishing portions of a dissertation in journals or revising the dissertation into a scholarly monograph will typically be accommodated through the limited access option, unless the student has documented guidance from a journal or publisher that this remedy is insufficient. That information should be included in the petition. 

▪ Departments should establish a standard process for the evaluation of petitions for embargo in order to ensure consistent and equitable handling of this issue within and across cohorts. Programs with a graduate faculty governance committee, for example, might choose to route all petitions through that body. Chairs may delegate the review of petitions to DGSes, but the chair should be copied on the transmission of the petition to the Graduate School with the department’s comments.

▪ At the conclusion of an embargo period, former students may utilize the petition process described above to extend the embargo.

▪ If a former student had initially selected a period of limited access that is fewer than five years at the time the thesis or dissertation was deposited with LIBRA, that former student may contact the Library directly at libra@virginia.edu to extend limited access up to the maximum five-year period from the original date of submission. A former student who seeks to extend the period of limited access beyond the standard five-year maximum must pursue the petition process described above.