Further, access can be limited by component, so that one chapter is secured while the rest of the work is made available. Some institutions may add other restrictions to defray costs, such as charging for copies, much like UMI does. While many types of access restriction are possible, the special needs of authors, requirements of the research projects they have participated in, and the policies of the institution awarding their degree, must be considered in concert when deciding what type of access is suitable for a given work. Related Publications Research that led to a thesis or dissertation has often been discussed in other types of documents, such as conference papers, journal articles, or manuscripts. In some cases, those publications have been released before the graduate work is approved, but in many cases the related publications appear after the thesis or dissertation has appeared.
Timing is clearly important.
For hot results it may be important for a journal article to appear before widespread access is allowed to a related dissertation, but making the dissertation available quickly thereafter may be of great value in stimulating further confirming or related research. Related publications almost always are radically different from the theses or dissertations. Typically, conference or journal articles are much shorter, are organized differently, benefit from considerable reflection on what was most important during the period of graduate research, and are much better written. With ETDs, there is no fundamental difference from the paper based scheme currently in effect, regarding related publications. Rather, there is much greater possibility of controlling access to ETDs than is possible now with paper copies.