Submitting your thesis - A stepped process

Bond University higher degree theses are placed into the University's open access Research Portal, and are fully searchable via Library Search, Trove (National Library of Australia) and through web search engines, giving PhD graduates maximum visibility for their research.

• Bond University Doctoral or Masters (by research) theses are accepted by the Library.
• The author retains copyright and intellectual property rights over their original work. 

       Copyright and detailed formatting information is provided in the HDR Handbook.

       Go to > iLearn > HDR Student Community > HDR Handbook and Policies

Send the pre-examination copy of your thesis, and copyright permission file, by email to the Manager, Scholarly Publications & Copyright and the Manager, Information Resources at least three (3) months before your thesis submission date for a copyright and formatting check.

The Library assists students to submit a copyright-compliant and correctly formatted version of their thesis/exegesis for examination and final upload to the Bond Research Portal.

Copyright check

During the research and writing period, use the Copyright for Researchers Toolkit and Excel Copyright Log to keep track of:

• copyright material you have reproduced
• requests for copyright permission
• licences and permissions received

See the Managing copyright material in your thesis page of this guide for further information.

Submit a separate PDF file of copyright permissions for the reproduction of published articles and other third-party copyright material included in your thesis to the Library. 

Licences and permissions should be saved as PDFs and compiled into one PDF file named 'Copyright Permissions'. This file must be provided with the Thesis for a copyright check.

Formatting check

Consult the Bond HDR Handbook for detailed information on how your thesis should be formatted and submitted.  All theses are to follow the formatting as shown in the Handbook.

It is important to follow the formatting guide.

• Follow the Title page layout example.
• Follow the Table of Contents example.
• All headings should be included in the thesis on a separate page and contain an appropriate statement, or content. 

The thesis must be submitted in PDF format. 

Convert the Word version of your thesis to PDF by going to the Word Menu bar and selecting File > Save as Adobe PDF. You can also try this online PDF conversion service for free: Doc2PDF Online. Contact IT Services if you have any conversion difficulties.

All current HDR students are introduced to the WorkFlowGen Portal (WFG) early in their candidature.

Check the HDR Handbook for further information about the Thesis submission WorkflowGen process.

The WorkFlowGen submission of your thesis for examination will first go to the Library for copyright and format checking before being approved by the faculty.

The following requirements apply to Bond research higher degree students (i.e. Doctoral or Masters by research) under the Higher Degree Research Student Supervision Policy RES 4.4.3 and the HDR handbook. 

 Before commencing the Examination process, the candidate must submit:

• A declaration of originality
• An examination copy of the thesis via WorkFlowGen, along with a Copyright Permissions file (if applicable).
•  A structured deposit of data, including materials and methods, corresponding to the Examination copy of the thesis in accordance with the Research Data Management and Sharing Policy RES 4.2.1

Candidates must lodge the final examined version of their thesis using the Thesis Deposit form in WorkflowGen (WFG) with the following documents:

• a PDF file of the Thesis. This will be uploaded to the Bond Research Portal and will also be available through Library Search. 
• a separate Copyright Permissions PDF file (if applicable)
• a PDF copy of the candidate’s Research Data Management Plan.

The Library does not require a print copy of the thesis.

A copyright-compliant thesis can carry a Creative Commons (CC) Licence under Bond University’s Open Access Policy. 

Applying a CC licence to a thesis is beneficial in protecting the work in an Open Access environment as it specifies the permitted re-use of the work.   

The recommended CC licence to attach to a thesis is the Attribution Non Commercial-No Derivatives Licence 4.0 (CC BY NC-ND). 

Terms of Use: Anyone using the CC BY NC-ND licensed work must attribute the work to the original creator. The licence allows copying and distribution of the original work. The material may not be used for commercial purposes and no adaptations or modified versions of the work may be distributed.

• NC means that the licensor (the copyright owner) reserves the right to exploit the material commercially. 

• The intent and purpose of the ND restriction is to protect the integrity of the work. The right to modify and share the work is reserved by the author. 

The option to apply the CC licence to your thesis is included in the Thesis submission process via the HDR Workflow Portal.

If a student intends to commercialise their research, make an appointment with Andrew Calder, Director of Research, to discuss commercialisation and intellectual property issues.