The Office of the Registrar provides requirements for formatting and depositing theses, including information about the title page, margins, non-written material, how it gets cataloged, and copyright. If you have any questions about how to be part of open access to scholarship, talk to your subject librarian. To see past examples of theses, refer to the access policies of Archives & Special Collections.
From the registrar's guidelines:
III. RESTRICTIONS
A. Theses are available to members of the Faculty for examination prior to the meeting at which the Faculty votes on the degree.
B. Copyright and Licensing.
1. By law, copyright in the thesis belongs to the author, including all rights of publication and reproduction. U.S. copyright law does not protect facts, data, or ideas: see 17 U.S.C. § 102(b).
2. Electronic copies of the submitted thesis become an official record of the Registrar and Amherst College. The author retains copyright in the work.
3. Senior theses are preserved in the Archives & Special Collections in Frost Library where they are available for consultation. The Library will not make copies of a thesis or make anything other than basic title and author information available online without the express permission of the author.
C. If the student and/or their faculty advisor want to restrict access to their thesis, they should contact the Head of Archives & Special Collections.
