About VTechWorks

VTechWorks, Virginia Tech's open access institutional repository, publicizes and preserves the scholarly work of Virginia Tech faculty, students, and staff: journal articles, books, theses, dissertations, conference papers, slide presentations, technical reports, working papers, administrative documents, videos, images, datasets, and more. Most content is recent, published within the last 15 years, but there is also a great deal of older and historical content. The full text of all documents is available, often in PDF format, and all entries are indexed by search engines such as Google Scholar and Summon. Any member of the Virginia Tech community can upload material to VTechWorks.

VTechWorks supports a hierarchical structure composed of Communities and Collections. Communities include colleges, departments, research centers, institutes, or other entities. Communities contain Collections and sub-communities, and Collections hold the digital works. VTechWorks was launched in 2012 and runs on the widely-used DSpace preservation platform. VTechWorks is managed by the Virginia Tech Libraries for the purpose of stewarding the intellectual output of the university in its land-grant mission to serve the Commonwealth of Virginia, the nation, and the world community through the discovery and dissemination of new knowledge.

How VTechWorks benefits researchers

• • Research in VTechWorks is widely disseminated, free to anyone in the world with an Internet connection.

  • Research in VTechWorks is easily discovered, since it is indexed in Google Scholar, Google, WorldCat, the Virginia Tech website, and the University Libraries' catalog.

  • Research in VTechWorks has increased impact: many studies show that openly accessible research is more frequently cited by journalists and scholars than research published in journals and books that must be paid for.

  • Research in VTechWorks is more accessible to scholars at under-resourced institutions and in developing nations.

  • Research in VTechWorks has a persistent, stable link to the item record ("handle") that won't change, which makes it more reliable for others to cite and to share on social media.

  • Research in VTechWorks will be preserved by the University Libraries for decades or even centuries, unlike research posted on a personal web page or published by a company that might go out of business.

  • Research in VTechWorks is preserved even if a researcher leaves Virginia Tech, but it can always be posted or published elsewhere, since Virginia Tech does not claim any unnecessary or additional rights to the material.