2013-2014 Graduate Catalog Downloadable PDF (10.71MB)

Degree Information 35ting either a Major, Degree, or Department petition (MDD) or a Long Form petition.The petition will be routed for the required approval by the members of the student’sadvisory committee, if appointed, and the department head, or his or her designee (orchair of the intercollegiate faculty, if appropriate).Pre-Defense Publication of Thesis or Dissertation MaterialA graduate student may publish material that subsequently will be used as part of thethesis, dissertation or record of study.A student should be aware of the copyright agreement that is signed when a journal(hard copy or electronic) accepts an article for publication. At that time, the student generallyassigns rights to the journal as publisher. If the student has not retained the rightto use the material in the thesis, dissertation, or record of study, he/she must then obtainwritten permission from the copyright holder to include the material in the manuscript.If such permission is not obtained, or rights have not been retained, the copyrighted materialcannot be included in the thesis, dissertation, or record of study.Classified and Proprietary InformationCommittee chairs should be cautioned about allowing a student to use classified orproprietary information in theses or dissertations because these documents becomeavailable to the public upon submission to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies.The research conducted at Texas A&M University, as a Texas public institution, isultimately for the benefit of the public. All theses, dissertations, and records of study areavailable on the Internet via the Texas A&M University Libraries. In addition, dissertationsare published electronically by ProQuest (UMI) and are available from that source.Availability may be delayed temporarily only for patent/proprietary or publication issues.Intellectual PropertyThe ownership, management and commercialization of system-owned IntellectualProperty and Tangible Research Property are set forth in System Policy 17.01 IntellectualProperty Management and Commercialization. Intellectual Property will mean, collectively,all forms of intellectual property including, but not limited to, issued patents, patentableinventions, copyrightable works, trademarks, mask works, and trade secrets. The systemrecognizes and affirms the traditional academic freedom of its faculty and staff to publishpedagogical, scholarly or artistic works without restriction. In keeping with this philosophy,the system does not claim copyright to pedagogical, scholarly or artistic works,regardless of their form of expression, unless required by a funding or research contract.Such works include, but are not limited to, copyrightable works of students created inthe course of their education, such as dissertations, papers and journal articles. Authorsof copyrightable works that are not owned by the system, its members, or another partysuch as a research sponsor, own the copyright in their works and are free to publish them,register the copyright, and receive any revenues which may result.Accordingly, copyrightable works may be owned by the student/author/creator, bymultiple individuals (such as a research team or co-authors of a publication), by the System,by a System member, or by another party such as a research sponsor. Factors thatrequire consideration in determining ownership include: 1) whether or not the intellec-