Submission Guidelines

1. Eligibility to Deposit

The following categories of persons are eligible to deposit works in the WBU Scholarly Repository:

• Current and former students of World Bridge University who have authored works in fulfilment of a WBU degree programme
• Current and former faculty members and academic staff affiliated with WBU
• Postdoctoral researchers and visiting scholars affiliated with WBU at the time of the work's creation
• Research staff employed on WBU-administered grants or contracts

2. Eligible Work Types

The Repository accepts the following categories of scholarly works:

• Theses: Master's theses completed in partial or full fulfilment of a postgraduate degree at WBU
• Dissertations: Doctoral dissertations submitted and approved by the relevant degree committee
• Journal Articles: Articles published in or accepted for publication in peer-reviewed academic journals
• Conference Papers: Papers presented at and included in the proceedings of recognised scholarly conferences
• Student Research Projects: Substantial undergraduate or postgraduate research projects approved by the supervising faculty member

3. File Format Requirements

All submissions must adhere to the following technical specifications:

• Primary file format: PDF (Portable Document Format), preferably PDF/A for long-term preservation
• File size: Maximum 50 MB per deposit. Works exceeding this limit should be discussed with the Repository Administrator
• Character encoding: UTF-8 where applicable
• Language: Works in languages other than English must include an English-language abstract

4. Mandatory Metadata

Depositors must provide the following metadata fields to ensure effective discovery and citation:

• Full title of the work
• Author's full legal name as it appears on the work
• Author's institutional email address
• Degree programme and department
• Faculty or College
• Name of supervising faculty member (for theses and dissertations)
• Work category (Thesis, Dissertation, Journal Article, Conference Paper, or Student Research Project)
• Structured abstract (150–300 words) summarising objectives, methodology, findings, and conclusions
• Keywords (minimum three; maximum ten, separated by commas)

5. Review and Approval Workflow

All submissions are subject to the following review process prior to public archiving:

1. Initial submission: The depositor completes the online submission form and uploads the PDF
2. Initial review: The Repository Administrator verifies completeness of metadata and compliance with eligibility criteria
3. Peer/expert review: Where appropriate, the submission is forwarded to an assigned subject expert or reviewer
4. Plagiarism and integrity check: All submissions are assessed for originality using institutional detection tools
5. Acceptance or revision request: The author is notified of the outcome and, where revisions are required, a detailed revision request is issued
6. Publication: Approved submissions are assigned a persistent identifier and made publicly accessible

6. Statement of Originality

By submitting a work to the Repository, the depositor declares that: (a) the work is their own original scholarship or a work for which they hold the necessary rights to deposit; (b) the work does not, to the best of their knowledge, infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party; and (c) they grant World Bridge University the non-exclusive right to archive, preserve, and provide open access to the work for educational and scholarly purposes.

7. Withdrawal of Deposits

Once published in the Repository, withdrawal of a deposit is discouraged in the interest of scholarly record integrity. Requests for withdrawal or restriction of access may be submitted in writing to the Office of Academic Affairs and will be considered on a case-by-case basis on grounds of legal obligation, established copyright infringement, or demonstrable scholarly error.