News & Blog

With almost 3,000,000 downloads in just five years, STARS wants to help you reach a worldwide audience by providing an online home for your digital projects! Faculty and students navigate a world where scholarship is increasingly digital. STARS, UCF’s Showcase of Text, Archives, Research & Scholarship, is the digital institutional repository of content by, for, or about UCF. Through STARS, UCF offers authors a way to manage, share, and increase impact for their full range of scholarship, from open educational resources and podcasts to image galleries and journals.

Did you know you can shine a light on your scholarship by adding your works to the Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works collection? This collection was created specifically to showcase faculty contributions.  View the works and citations currently available and then login or create an account to start adding your materials. Your Author Dashboard will provide access to real-time download activity, alternative metrics, and usage reports on demand. Newly integrated PlumX metrics show you citations, media mentions, tweets, and more.

Need a new collection for your project? Let us know!

Questions about submitting works or your rights as an author? Email us at STARS@ucf.edu

Ready to see how STARS can help you shine a light on your works? Visit stars.library.ucf.edu 

Students at UCF work on all kinds of interesting creative projects and research. UCF Libraries has the privilege of being able to house physical and digital copies of decades of research done by students and faculty.  

STARS is UCF’s Showcase of Text, Archives, Research & Scholarship, and is home to scholarship and creative works done by students and faculty across disciplines. STARS provides an option for contributors to share their work while retaining their copyright. Most items in STARS are freely available to users around the world. Materials can be browsed College, Department, or individual collection: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/communities.html. 

Users can browse all Theses and Dissertations completed at UCF, including everything from a political science paper about the 2020 Presidential primaries and the Democratic Party’s influence to a Communication paper on the effects of social media on mental health. College and Department level collections are also available, as well as a browsable collection of Advisors and Chairs. 

We’ve also curated a list of some of the many interesting works by students in the History Department, Creative Writing program, College of Sciences, and College of Nursing below:  

History 

Pestilence and Poverty: The Great Influenza Pandemic and Underdevelopment in the New South, 1918-1919 by Andrew Kishuni 

Farm Women as Producers & Consumers in the 20th Century U.S. South by Joseph J. Kaminski 

Rebuilt and Remade: The Florida Citrus Industry, 1909-1939 by James Padgett  

Hippieland: Bohemian Space and Countercultural Place in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood by Kevin Mercer 

Mass Media and the Evolution of the Environmental Movement: 1960-1979 by Donald Anguish 

Creative Writing 

Golden Years by Sienna Malik 

Tourist Trap: On Being Raised In Award-winning Sand by Catherine Jane Carson 

According to the Gospel of Haunted Women by Judith Roney  

Assisted Living: Stories by Donovan Swift 

I Have Questions by Lorena Matejowsky 

Migrant Child by Nicholas Shepherd 

College of Sciences 

A Socio-Economic Assessment of Marine Turtle Eco-tourism by Kendra Cope (2015) 

Impact of Increased Green Turtle Nesting on Loggerhead Fitness by Amanda R. Carmichael (2018) 

It’s Just a Bad Period” and Other Ways of Dismissing Women’s Pain: An Ethnographic Look into the Experience of Endometriosis by Seline Hays 

Impact of Work-Life Balance on Health-Related Quality of Life Among College Students by Emily Vernet 

Experiences of Young Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Latinx People in Healthcare by Caleb Hernandez  

Whose Sustainability? An Analysis of a Community Farming Program’s Food Justice and Environmental Sustainability Agenda by Sarah Davenport  

College of Nursing 

Exploring the Different Factors Associated with Burnout by Natassja J. DeBra 

As we continue to share UCF Library’s online resources, we hope that you find new ways to engage with your fellow Knights across disciplines and genres. 

University of Central Florida, through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), has established the Federal Emergency Grant to support students negatively impacted by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Technology is one of the items for which CARES Act funds can be used. Two specific examples are new technology for online classes and the purchase of laptop/desktop as a result to classes moving online due to COVID-19.

Students who need assistance meeting these unexpected financial challenges should apply for CARES Act funds by submitting a federal emergency grant request.

The form to apply for funds is available at https://ucf.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_86rDdVwFnV1Rj0h

Application window will be open until 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, May 19. Assistance is subject to availability of funds, and applicants must meet eligibility criteria.

UCF has a CARES Act FAQ at https://www.ucf.edu/coronavirus/question/how-can-students-apply-for-cares-act-funds/.

For additional resources, the UCF CARES office provides assistance in connecting students with mental health services, support groups, sexual and domestic violence support, and concerns about wellbeing such as financial and housing crises.

What terrors lurk in the heart of humanity? What scary thoughts skulk in the corners of your mind? What dark and spooky words will cross your page?

Can you creep out UCF Libraries staff with a scary story set in one of the UCF Library buildings?

Submit your scary story for the annual Knight Terror Library writing contest by 11:59 pm on October 27, 2019 to see if you can cause the best fright.

• Contest for UCF students only.
• One entry per student.
• 500 words or less.
• Story must be set in one of the UCF Library buildings (John C. Hitt Library, Curriculum Materials Center, Rosen Library, Downtown Library, or one of the Connect campus libraries).
• Stories with explicit sexual content will not be considered for this contest.

Submit your scary short story here

Winners will be announced on October 31, and be immortalized in STARS KnightVerse. First place wins a Libraries coffee mug and construction ducky. Second place wins a UCF Libraries water bottle and Pegasus sticker.

Judges reserve the right to not select a winner due to limited submissions, or lack of exceptional submissions.

LibTech Lending Items will be limited to 4 hour and 24 hour items during the Winter Break starting December 17th, 2018.

No Laptops, iPads, Cameras, Projectors, or any other multi-day items are available for checkout as the staff will be doing inventory and maintenance on the items to prepare them for use in the upcoming Spring 2019 semester.

Thank you for understanding and Happy Holidays!