JMURJ accepts submissions from all JMU undergraduate researchers and scholars in all JMU disciplines, as well as from recent graduates. Our open, inclusive definition of research and scholarship covers all fields of study, including the physical and natural sciences, business, education, the visual and performing arts, the social sciences, and the humanities.
JMURJ accepts two types of media-based submissions.
Text-based Multimedia Submissions
- JMURJ accepts stand-alone pieces of digital scholarship (i.e., text-based research and scholarship presented in digital form). Digital scholarship submissions may include work that incorporates film, audio, images, artwork, and other media, such as a short documentary or recorded presentation.
- Use your discipline's citation style as you give appropriate credit to images, video clips, sound files, and print sources.
- Work to affirm that any secondary sources you used for a course-specific project meet academic "fair use" copyright guidelines.
- If you worked with a group to create your submission, ensure that all group members agree to submit to JMURJ.
- If your work involved living human participants (e.g., you obtained (1) data through intervention or interaction with an individual, or (2) identifiable private information), make sure your submission explicitly affirms JMU Institutional Review Board approval to conduct and disseminate your research. Contact JMURJ or consult with your professor regarding any IRB questions.
Artifact- and Media-based Submissions
- JMURJ accepts artifact- and media-based submissions such as architectural designs, technical drawings, scale models, artwork, musical pieces or performances, dramatic works, spreadsheets, graphs, data charts, short films, and websites.
- Media- and artifact-based submissions should include a brief research statement that positions a diverse academic audience to understand and appreciate the research involved in creating your work (see below).
- Electronically capture creative work. Examples may include photos of the artwork (unless the work is a photograph itself), recordings of the musical or dramatic performance, or a link to a website.
- Use your discipline's citation style as you give appropriate credit to any sources, images, figures, or tables.
Research Statements
Brief "research statements"—750-2,000 words—enable a diverse academic audience not familiar with your discipline to appreciate your behind-the-scenes thinking and work. The questions below offer starting points for a JMURJ research statement:
- If you created your submission for a course, what was the context and purpose of the project or assignment? What did the assignment ask you to think about or do?
- What question or concern or idea motivated your work? What was your purpose or goal?
- What research did you conduct or build on? What did you test, survey, sample, evaluate, find, compile, synthesize, explore, discover, or look for? Were you in the lab, in the field, in the library archives or stacks or databases, and/or in the web/in the cloud/working with software?
- What was your method or process? What concerns influenced or informed your method/process and what important key choices did you make? What methods, approaches, or technologies did you use?
- How does the work build on, inform, open opportunities, or advance research or scholarship in your field?
How to Submit
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Attach your work in an email to jmurj@jmu.edu
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Save any accompanying 750-2,000 word "research statement" in Microsoft Word (or the equivalent) before attaching it to your email
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To keep the process anonymous, remove your name, your professor's name, and any other identifying features from your submission
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Include the following information in the body of your email:
- Your name if you are the only author, or the names of all authors if you are submitting a collaborative work
- your most used/most permanent not-JMU email address, or the not-JMU email addresses of all authors if you are submitting a collaborative work
- The title of your submission
- Your current year in school (freshman, sophomore...), your (current/intended) major, and your (intended) graduation date
- The course name and the semester and year in which you created the project (if applicable)
- The name of the professor who assigned or advised your project, or with whom you worked (if applicable)
- A sentence or two helping us to know how you learned about JMURJ (e.g., professor, department, email, flyer, social media, word of mouth)
Accepted File Formats
Preserve all raw footage, sound, and other media that you use in creating your submission, as JMURJ reviewers may suggest that you revise or edit in order to move forward in the publication process. Let us know if you have questions about other file formats.
- Sound Files—mp3, .wmv
- Video Files—mp4, .mov, .avi
- Photos and Images—.png, .jpg
- Animated Submissions—.swf
- Numerical Analyses—Excel
- Code—.rtf or base language
Submission Deadline
JMURJ accepts submissions on a rolling basis and publishes on a rolling basis, which means that you do not need to wait until the end of the academic year, or the end of the next academic year, to hear or report news regarding your submission. We will initiate the JMURJ review process as soon as we receive your submission.
Check out our our FAQs page for submission status information!
