CNST 5084: Research Methods in Building Construction: Dissertations & Citation Search Databases

This guide is intended for use in conjunction with the course: Research Methods in Building Construction. Visit the Art & Architecture Library website for access to specialized resources, hours, and contact information.

Dissertations

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global
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Includes more than 2.7 million citations to dissertations and theses from around the world along with more than 1.2 million full-text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. More than 70,000 new full-text dissertations and theses are added yearly. Use ILLiad to request non-full-text theses or dissertations. 1637-present, full-text dissertations 1997-present.
VTechWorks
VTechWorks is Virginia Tech's institutional repository. It contains born-digital and scanned publications of Virginia Tech faculty and students, like dissertations, plus documents like Virginia state publication. Most are available in full text (PDF and other formats) and have no restrictions on access.
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, 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 Most content is recent, published within the last 15 years, but there is also a great deal of older and historical content.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 Discovery Search. Any member of the Virginia Tech community can upload material to VTechWorks.
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, WorldCat, the Virginia Tech website, and the Library's Discovery.
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 has a persistent, stable link ("handle") that won't change even when current servers are replaced, 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.

Important Databases for Grad Students

Web of Science from Clarivate Analytics
The three Web of Science databases index citations from journal articles and conference proceedings in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. You can perform cited reference searches, analyze trends and patterns, and create visual representations of citation relationships. 1900-present
ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect provides full-text journals, ebooks, reference works, and textbooks in HTML and PDF, plus the e-reader formats ePUB and Mobi. Many titles have backfiles back to volume 1 included. We do not subscribe to every title on this platform.
WorldCat
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With an index of hundreds of millions of bibliographic records which represent several billion resources in libraries worldwide, WorldCat is the world's most comprehensive database of information about library collections.
This database bibliographic records also represent 400 languages, indexing material from:

Books
Journal articles
Websites and internet resources
Computer programs
Films and slides
Journals and magazines
Manuscripts
Maps
Musical scores
Newspapers
Videotapes, et cetera.

Last Updated: Jan 30, 2024 2:58 PM
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