Each year undergraduates spend hours writing their senior theses - but what becomes of them after the students graduate? This question prompted three recent Dartmouth graduates to launch UGResearch.org, a free online undergraduate thesis database, early last summer.
"It's a shame to have (theses) sitting in the basement of a library ... when students have put time and hard effort into them," said Jeff Iacono, one of the site's founders. The new Web site offers a "service for (students) and an opportunity."
Anybody with a university e-mail address can register for UGResearch, upload a thesis and download from the site's database.
The idea for UGResearch came to Iacono, Patrick Cantwell and Peter Noteboom last year. Noteboom said that he was auditing an economics class and was amazed at the honors theses he saw being presented. Cantwell, who began his graduate studies at Dartmouth last year, said that while doing research for his masters, he "saw some good undergraduate theses but found them using Google since they're not all in one place."
The three decided to offer students a publishing opportunity as well as create a research tool for those who are currently working on their theses. "Kids are doing such great work on the undergraduate level, but they don't have time to get it published," Noteboom said. He added that while students are writing their theses it is important for them to know if their research has already been done; before UGResearch, this information was nearly impossible to find, as each university kept its own archive. The database simplifies the process, since all schools are combined in one place.
Although UGResearch had only about 300 registered users a month ago, Iacono said he believes the site currently has between 1000 and 2000 members, though he hasn't checked recently. Cantwell said they had a "pretty big surge in the last few weeks" because of an article in the Dartmouth student newspaper. Right now there are 97 theses uploaded to the database, with 84 of them coming from Dartmouth.
Noteboom says that in the future he plans to talk to professors, librarians and administrators in an effort to get more students involved. "We would like to have professors suggest UGResearch as an option," said Iacono, who stressed that he didn't want to force students to post their papers. It's a "very voluntary action to post your thesis," he said.
Noteboom said that UGResarch doesn't have the funds right now to scan older theses already in college archives, but that it might happen in the next 10 years.
"We are trying to get critical mass of theses online before going retroactive," Iacono said. "But if past students want to submit (their old theses), we would gladly put them up."
Noteboom said that he has gotten "tremendous feedback from students and librarians." The only negative feedback, according to Iacono, were small technical glitches such as posting the e-mail addresses of those who have uploaded their theses to the Web site.
After looking at the Web site, Peter Chai '06, who is writing an art history thesis, said in an e-mail to The Herald that he would be willing to upload his thesis to the Web site.
The founders have spread the word recently using what they call an "undergrad grassroots movement," which includes contacting friends and college newspapers. Recently a Prince-ton undergraduate e-mailed 300 of his friends about the Web site, Cantwell said. However, Iacono said they are "still trying to figure out the best way to get the word out."
Chai echoed this, saying, "I think a lot of thesis students don't know about this."
Although UGResearch is supported financially by Noteboom right now, he said that the "ultimate plan is to get college support ... (since we) will need a bigger server and employees." He says that right now UG-Research has gotten offers of donations from alums to cover expenses.
In response to significant interest from students overseas, the founders of UGResearch are creating a similar thesis database for graduate students. Iacono said he hopes the new site, gradresearch.org, will be up by Friday.
In the U.S., companies like Proquest offer subscription dissertation databases for graduate students, something Noteboom thinks is "inhibiting academic discourse." Therefore he expects the main market for gradresearch.org to be in Europe, where theses are not commonly stored, he said. In the future Noteboom, who is currently doing graduate research in African development, would like to promote the Web site in Africa, where many cannot afford subscriptions to databases like Proquest.
Brown's thesis archive is not online, although students can search abstracts of theses as well as their department, author and advisor. In order to find a particular thesis "you only need one piece of the puzzle," said Library Associate Specialist Raymond Butti Jr.
There are no plans to digitize the entire archive, which has collected 3,534 honors theses since 1956, according to Butti. Many people use the thesis archive to see what's expected from them in terms of format and content for their own theses, he said.
"People come fairly often from outside the University," including many former students who come back to request copies of their own theses, he said.
