This year, the 2023 Virtual Undergraduate Research Conference takes place on April 13th. It is the second year the library has worked with the Office of High Impact Practices and Undergraduate Research (HIPUR) to host the virtual event. For the 2022 Virtual Undergraduate Research Conference, there were over 100 student virtual presentations posted on the institutional repository, Digital Commons @ USF, spread across a variety of disciplines. These virtual presentations are available to a worldwide audience with permanent hyperlinks so that students can put the presentation links on their resumes or CVs.
This year, we have approximately 30 student presentations in the arts and humanities, business and economics, health sciences, natural and physical sciences, social sciences, and interdisciplinary studies. Students have provided videos of their presentations, PDFs of their posters, and transcripts of their videos to ensure that their videos are accessible. There will be a section for students to reply and leave comments as a way to create engagement in an online forum.
The Nelson Poynter Memorial Library on the USF St. Petersburg campus worked with the Office of Research prior to consolidation to help host the USFSP Student Research Symposium. In 2020, rather than canceling the event due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NPML library worked with the Office of Research to host the 2020 Virtual Student Research Symposium on USF St. Petersburg campus Digital Archive. This virtual event in 2020 paved the way for later virtual student conferences after consolidation.
USF Libraries hopes to continue working with HIPUR to host this virtual event annually to highlight high impact student work throughout the year. For other conferences that are hosted on Digital Commons @ USF, visit the institutional repository.