Database posts theses online

Author: Ian Schmertzler

Using a newly-available online database, college seniors worldwide can now post their senior theses for viewing by professors and their fellow students alike. The Web site, UGResearch.org, was developed last year by two Dartmouth graduates.

According to a statement on the site, the database's purpose is to "advance independent research at the undergraduate level." The Dartmouth '05 co-founders, Peter Notebloom and Jeffrey Iacono, said they are still working to make more content available on the site. Said Notebloom, "We [now] have over 100 theses; the longest paper is 219 pages." Contributing universities include Amherst, Dartmouth, Harvard, the University of London, Princeton, the University of North Carolina and the University of Linz in Austria.

The co-founders believe the database will prove beneficial to students hoping to avoid repeating previous research, as well as to those who might use other students' theses as a stepping stone for their own work. Despite this potential, however, Notebloom explained that a lack of publicity is preventing further growth. "Most campuses still don't know about the project," he said.

Notebloom said that he and Iacono planned to improve their situation through an inter-collegiate publicity campaign aimed at student news organizations; with increased publicity, he explained that the two hope to enhancethe database itself and to increase the number of visits it receives. Progress is being made in other areas as well, he said. "We're working with about a dozen undergraduate journals to create a comprehensive database of undergraduate journal articles," he said. "The journal database should be up and running by March 1st."

In terms of funding, the two founders have been maintaining the site in their spare time and financing it themselves. "We have had promising conversations with college librarians about funding, but we actually aren't very concerned about money right now," said Notebloom. "The Web site is inexpensive to run and we have an all-volunteer workforce. If students at every college are willing to volunteer and create more of a grass-roots campaign, we'll never need very much money for the site."

Notebloom stressed that alumni - including Middlebury's recently-graduated Febs - can still add their theses to the database, since part of the Web site's growth strategy is to make its services available to all college students, both past and present. "We'd love it if Middlebury students would check out the site and upload their research. UGResearch is a great opportunity for [college students] to show off the quality of their undergraduate research," Notebloom, said.