Question: Do I need permission to publish all or some of my thesis or dissertation?

Generally, as the author you hold the copyright in your electronic thesis or dissertation (ETD), for all original, previously unpublished, content you wrote. When you submit your ETD, you give WVU a non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible the ETD and you are not required to seek permission to publish. 

However, as explained in the WVU, BOG Governance Rule 1.5 Intellectual Property Rule for Patent, Copyright, and Trademark Rights Intellectual Property. WVU may retain the copyright in your ETD if it was created "in connection with such Graduate Student’s research, thesis, or dissertation that is sponsored pursuant to an agreement between an external sponsor and the University or an internal University sponsorship agreement." If your dissertation research was internally or externally sponsored you should check your agreement. 

WVUs policy also specifically exempts any software created as part of internally or externally sponsored research and you should submit a Copyright Disclosure form to the Office of Innovation and Commercialization for any software you created.