"Students spend all of this time and energy writing a thesis and I think many find it disheartening when it just ends up in the basement of their [college] library," said Peter Noteboom, one of the site's founders. "Making their work accessible and searchable online saves it from obscurity." Any student with a college e-mail address can register for UGResearch for free, upload a thesis and download from the site's database.
The idea for UGResearch came to Noteboom and Jeffrey Iacono in their last year at Dartmouth. While auditing an economics class and writing his own thesis, Noteboom said he was amazed by two juniors' presentation for an independent research paper. "It occurred to me that undergraduates often write papers that are novel and academically valuable," he said. "However, because those papers are never published, students and professors at other schools are unable to build off the work, which leads to repetition and stagnation."
Noteboom approached Iacono with his idea and the two began developing the Web site together. They decided to offer students a way of publishing their work, as well as a research tool for those currently working on their theses. With the online database, active for six months now, undergraduates can view previous work and build from existing ideas, according to Iacono.
With UGResearch, students can now find college theses from around the world, all concentrated in one place. "Our ultimate goal is to become a comprehensive source for undergraduate research around the world, allowing students in Kenya or Germany to build off of the work of someone in the U.S.," said Noteboom. UGResearch.org now has over 100 theses, with contributions coming from institutions including Amherst, Dartmouth, Harvard University, the University of London and the University of Linz in Austria.
Despite the site's services, however, most campuses do not know about the database. The success of the project, therefore, depends primarily on students and word of mouth. "We ask current undergraduates to help us promote the idea at their colleges by talking with teachers and fellow students," he said.
The two founders have been financially supporting the Web site. Ideally, college and universities would sponsor the database by paying a subscription fee, similar to those given to databases such as JSTOR and Proquest. Iacono stressed, however, that his company would never ask students to pay a subscription fee, stating that college education alone costs enough.
Campus opinion about the new database varied. Anne-Claire Roesch '08 commented, "I think the site provides seniors with the a great opportunity to share their hard work with those who are interested instead of just submitting it for review and throwing it in the attic with everything else from college." She added, however, that access to previous work might limit student originality. "Even if an idea wasn't taken directly from the Web site, I think the ability to peruse previously completed theses limits the creative process of discovering what it is one is impassioned about and would like to devote months of hard work to," she said.
Professor of English Andrew Parker raised an important question concerning the ownership of theses. "I think it's a great idea, but it does raise complicated issues with intellectual property," said Parker. Evoking the example at Ohio State University, where graduate students were forced to upload their dissertations to a public access server as part of their graduation requirement, Parker asked, "Whose property is one's work anyway?"
Julie Smith '06, who has written a thesis for psychology, shared her own perspectives. "It would have been helpful if I had access to such a database while writing my thesis," Smith said. "It would be advantageous for students to see the work of those who came before them-enabling greater progress to be made as opposed to conducting research that is already accounted for."
Caroline Stevenson '06, who wrote a thesis for LJST, however, noted that school support for the site would be needed to reach its full potential. "I think that the school would need to encourage seniors to share their work if this project is to succeed, or else the database won't be particularly helpful," she said.
Thus far, two College students, Brainerd H. Whitbeck III and Ruth Baldwin '04, have submitted theses to the Web site.