Thesis collection: For students: Publicity of a thesis and publishing your thesis

• An approved thesis is a public document. About official documents, please see the Constitution of Finland, Section 12.2 and the Act on the Openness of Government Activities, Section 1. See also Aalto University General Regulations on Teaching and Studying, Section 33.
• Confidential information should be presented in a separate background material and not part of the thesis. This is based on the guidelines published by the Ministry of Education and Culture (2/500/2004).
• Author can decide about the online publishing of the archived thesis file. Electronic thesis file may be openly available for reading and downloading in Aaltodoc or only available for reading via selected workstations at the University. In addition, theses in electronic format will be sent by email to anyone requesting a copy from the Aalto University Learning Centre.*

*Based on the decision by the Administrative Court of Northern Finland (15.2.2019/0036/1),  according to Finland’s Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999) and related legislation, if an electronic version of a thesis exists, it has to be sent by email to any private person requesting it, even if the author has not has not opted the full text of their work to be public online. Copyright does not restrict giving access to information from a thesis that is a public document and hence, author’s permission is not necessary.

Read more:

• About the publicity of the theses from the Student Guide.
• About Aaltodoc from the Thesis collection guide - Aaltodoc.
• About reading theses on University's workstations from the Thesis collection guide - Aalto Thesis Database.

Student keep in mind that:

• The file of the thesis cannot be corrected or changed after the approved thesis has been archived to Aaltodoc. Errors in approved theses are corrected on an errata. I Errata help page for bachelor’s or master's theses I Errata for doctoral theses
• Thesis file should be in PDF/A-1a, -1b, -2a or -2b format. I PDF/A conversion help page (Instructions: IT Services)
• Thesis metadata, such as the name of the thesis and author, the author’s graduation year and degree programme, and thesis keywords are published in the Aaltodoc without exception.
• From January 1, 2024 abstracts are published in the Aaltodoc without exception.

Read detailed thesis instructions for:

• master's and bachelor’s students from the programme's web page at Student Guide.
• doctoral students from the Doctoral education web page.

The master's and bachelor’s theses are registered to Aaltodoc publication:

• Student may decide whether the thesis PDF file will be published in Aaltodoc.
• You can choose the publishing option when returning your thesis.
• It is possible to publish the thesis afterwards.
• It is possible to remove the published thesis file from Aaltodoc.

If you wish to publish your thesis afterwards or would like to remove your thesis file from Aaltodoc please, contact us by email aaltodoc-help [at] aalto.fi.

More information on the publication of the doctoral theses can be found on the doctoral education website Publishing your doctoral thesis.

• servicedesk [at] aalto.fi helps you with PDF/A conversion issues.
• turnitin [at] aalto.fi helps you if you have proplems using the Turnitin program.
• aaltodoc-help [at] aalto.fi helps you after the thesis file have been archived to Aaltodoc