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Undergraduates FYP: LDEM Capstone

Guidelines to Adding LDEM Capstone Projects to the Library

I. INTRODUCTION

The LDEM final year projects (FYP), also known as “capstone projects”, are part of the LDEM 242 (Advanced Design) six-credit course. Effective March 2016, the project of depositing and preserving the LDEM capstone projects in the AUB Libraries, and adding them to the AUB library catalog was initiated, in an effort to preserve students’ work, and provide access to them for future generations of students and scholars.
The submission is fully online; a print copy is no longer required.

II. PURPOSE

The overall purpose is to: a) preserve the students’ important contributions to research and knowledge producing efforts at the university; b) provide access to the projects; and c) clarify and unify the procedures to deposit these projects at the AUB Libraries. The below guidelines help ensure that all students’ senior projects are preserved and added to the library system in a timely, accurate and consistent manner, thus allowing the AUB community to have access to and benefit from the students’ unique work and contributions to their field of study.

III. PROCEDURES

1. Deposit

AUB libraries is responsible for receiving, cataloguing, preserving and providing access to the capstone projects.

In order to ensure the long-term preservation of and access to the LDEM Capstone projects, it is advised that each graduating student deposits at the library directly in AUB ScholarWorks as a complete PDF file including the preliminary content listed below and both forms signed.

 

2. Content of Project

The project should be made up of the following three parts: Preliminary pages, body or text, and end pages. Each of these parts may be subdivided into sections and subsections, clearly reflected in the table of contents:

a. The preliminary pages should be ordered as follows:

  • A Mandatory Title page (Not numbered) that includes:
    • The full title of the project
    • The full name of the student
    • Title of the degree conferred
    • Name of the Department
    • Name of the Faculty
    • Name of the University
    • Place and the date of submission
  • A Mandatory Project Approval Form (Not numbered) inserted when signed into the final PDF as part of the final project.
  • A Mandatory Project Release Form (Not numbered) inserted when signed into the final PDF as part of the final project.
  • Dedication (Not numbered and not counted in the pagination of the preliminary pages). Optional and placed before chapter 1 and without the word "dedicated”.
  • Acknowledgments, if any (Numbered as 1). Typing of the page numbers starts with this page.    
  • A Mandatory Abstract: The abstract summarizes the project’s main points: No word limit applies.
  • A Mandatory Table of Contents
     

b. The body should include:

Chapter titles and contents, including visuals, maps, etc. and documentation of final physical products .

 

c. The end pages should include:

  • Appendices, if any
  • References or Bibliography

In case of audio-visual items, they can be submitted to ScholarWorks as accompanying material and should be in the following format/specs (with maximum file size = 500MB):

  • Audio: .ogg, or .mp3
  • Video: .mp4 (h264 and its audio acc)
  • And for the purpose of being preserved on the server, it would be best to receive the digital file in its original format as well in the form of: .wav, .mov, etc. (as a second copy).

Please note that it is the student’s responsibility to ensure that the PDF and any additional content are readable and not too heavy in size (with the maximum size of a PDF being 40MB).

IV. COPYRIGHT AND ACCESS AUTHORIZATION

1. Student’s Responsibility

The Project Release Form must be signed and dated by the student when the thesis/project copy is deposited at the library's repository ScholarWorks. Please include this form in the PDF file submitted to library, checking one of the boxes as appropriate. Once done, sign and date.

The compiled PDF and any additional content should be named properly, following the naming convention set on ScholarWorks:  LastNameFirstName_PublicationYear (i.e. RahmeDalal_2020) and LastNameFirstName_year_DocTitle... for the accompanying material.

 

2. Faculty’s Role

It is advisable for the faculty member coordinating and overseeing the LDEM projects for that semester to ensure the following:

  1. Send a list with the graduating students’ names and the titles of their respective projects to Joyce Aways (ja48@aub.edu.lb) and Mona Assi (monassi@aub.edu.lb) at the Library, no later than three weeks prior to the end of the semester.
  2. Ensure that the student has filled in the correct release and access option, and correctly signed the form. (If there are any problems with the content or the forms, the LDEM Department must contact the students and follow up on the pending issues).
  3. To ensure that each faculty member advising students during that scholastic term fills out the correct Project Approval Form for each of their students and shares it with the students after their final presentation and approval of their thesis.

V. CATALOGUING AND ACCESS

The Library staff catalogs the projects and creates a bibliographic record for each (and a link for projects to which online access has been approved) in the Library Catalog. Catalogued projects will be discoverable through the Library Catalog; those authorized will be accessible through a digital link. The projects can also be accessed through ScholarWorks.