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ScholarWorks @ CWU

This guide introduces ScholarWorks, the institutional repository for Central Washington University, and explains its use by members of the university community.

How to submit your honors thesis to ScholarWorks

To submit your honors thesis to ScholarWorks @ CWU, please follow the instructions below. If you have any questions, you can contact us for help at scholarworks@cwu.edu or call 509-963-1718.

Embargo Requests

There are numerous advantages to publicly sharing your honors thesis via ScholarWorks @ CWU. More people can find and read your thesis, meaning that you will reach a larger audience and may garner more citations to your work. In addition, you will increase the visibility of Central Washington University and benefit academia at large with your research.

Despite these advantages, in some cases, you may wish to embargo, or temporarily restrict access to your honors thesis. Three primary reasons for embargoing include:

  • Your honors thesis has commercially sensitive content. Perhaps you need time to bring a concept to market or seek a patent.
  • You wish to publish all or part of your honors thesis using a traditional press that regards open access publication in an institutional repository as "prior publication." Most publishers do not operate in this way, but some may. Please do some research before choosing to embargo for this reason.
  • Your honors thesis contains sensitive data or information.

Please consult your committee chair and committee members when making the decision to embargo. The Scholarly Communications Librarian can also offer advice about embargoing your honors thesis.

In order to embargo your honors thesis, you must fill out the form below.

Embargo Request forms must be returned to the Scholarly Communications Librarian via email at scholarworks@cwu.edu.

Students may choose to request a one-, two-, or five-year embargo to protect their ability to publish or patent their work in the near future. An embargo provides a temporary, delayed public release of the work via ScholarWorks @ CWU. Embargo requests must be received at least one month prior to the posting of the honors thesis to ensure sufficient processing time.