The Purchase College Digital Repository contains senior theses, master’s theses, and senior capstone projects.
About the Collection
The mission of the Purchase College Digital Repository is to collect, preserve, make accessible, and celebrate the culminative work of SUNY Purchase students. By collecting the senior theses, master’s theses, and senior capstone projects of our students across academic disciplines, we strive to foster a collaborative and supportive culture. By contributing to the repository, students are showcasing their projects, ideas, and achievements to their peers. And by making these works openly accessible, we encourage collaboration and scholarly communication for current and future students and researchers.
Projects from all majors (Boards of Study) are represented in the digital repository. Presently, the collection includes projects from Fall 2018 to Fall 2023. For information on how to find past projects, please see the Find Past Projects page.
If you submitted your project for graduation in Fall 2018, Spring 2019, or Fall 2019 and have concerns about it being accessible in the College’s Digital Repository, please contact LIB.ir@purchase.edu.
Yes. Students may elect to place their student project/senior thesis/capstone/master’s thesis submission under a 5-year embargo. During the 5-year period, their projects will only be accessible by students and faculty affiliated with Purchase College. The option to select a 5-year embargo must be made when submitting the project to the Student Project Portal (in myHeliotrope). It is not possible to change the release option after the project has been submitted.
It is not possible to extend or renew the embargo period of your student project. If you have concerns regarding the embargo of your project, please reach out to the Purchase College Library by emailing lib.ir@purchase.edu.
It is not possible to have a submission be permanently set to private.
The repository is designed to showcase and archive student work. It is an open access repository and not designed to permanently restrict access. Students may elect to embargo their projects for 5 years. To permanently restrict access to a project is contrary the mission of the Purchase College Digital Repository and the SUNY Open Access Repository (SOAR) initiative.
It is not possible to hide the metadata of your project from search engines.
You may choose any title or abstract/description for your project during the submission process. Using a vague title or abstract/description will make your project harder to search online. Keep in mind, however, this may also make it harder for people who might benefit from your research, including fellow and future students, to find your project as well.
Using a vague title does not affect the ability to locate a specific project in the archive, as long as the author’s name, graduation year, and other metadata is known.
It is not possible to request a project be removed. Removing a project that has been submitted is contrary to the mission of the repository, which is to collect, preserve, make accessible, and celebrate the culminative work of SUNY Purchase students.
Graduates should remember that their capstone/thesis represents a snapshot in time. An alum may “outgrow” their BA-level work; they may conduct new research, change political views, or gain new insights that no longer align with their senior project. This is a natural part of being a life-long learner and a part of the process of growing as a scholar.
If you submitted your project for graduation in Fall 2018, Spring 2019, or Fall 2019 and have concerns about it being included in the College’s Digital Repository, please contact lib.ir@purchase.edu.
All other decisions regarding requests for the removal will be made on a case-by-case basis. In cases of extenuating circumstances, please contact lib.ir@purchase.edu.
The author name associated with a project is automatically generated within the Student Project Portal from Banner (the College’s student registration system). This cannot be changed or edited later on.
If you wish to use a preferred name instead of your legal name within Banner, you must contact the Registrar’s Office. Please note that a name change request will take time to process, so make sure you contact the registrar well in advance of the student project submission deadline.
Please note that the Library’s policy is to prohibit pen names or pseudonyms used purposefully to obscure the author’s identity, as this is contrary to the archival mission of the digital repository.
Not at all! Per the Student Project Deposit Agreement, the student-author retains sole copyright of their work and does not give up the right to submit the work to publishers or other repositories in the future.