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Research by undergraduate and graduate students past and present has reached a major milestone at ����ֱ�� University of California this month.

According to Michael Pujals, ����ֱ��’s Scholarly Communications Librarian, abstracts in – the University’s institutional repository of faculty authored papers and artwork, graduate master's theses, senior theses, podcasts, research posters, and conferences – have been now downloaded more than two million times. Created by Pujals, ����ֱ�� Scholar collects, preserves, and shares research by both students and faculty. Its intent is to give back to the community at large while at the same time maximizing the University's visibility and reach, making ����ֱ�� research easily accessible to 225 countries.

“����ֱ�� Scholar went live in September 2014, and we had our millionth download occur in the spring of 2020. We’ve now doubled that but in half the time,” Pujals says. “Our faculty and student publications have been downloaded, at no cost, in 228 countries and territories. With 25 percent of those going to developing countries it demonstrates ����ֱ��'s commitment to education and social justice on a global scale.”

Pujals notes that ����ֱ�� students are creating new scholarship all the time, including at the recent Scholarly and Creative Works Conference on campus. He says that under the old model, that work would end up in an instructor's office, or on a shelf in the library, and very few people, if any, would see it. Now with ����ֱ�� Scholar, students are contributing their work, for free, to a world-wide audience, and hopefully in the process making small improvements in people's lives.

The most cited paper in ����ֱ�� Scholar – – is co-authored by science professor Dr. Roland Cooper and the most social media mentions belong to , a recorded lecture by philosophy professor Laura Stivers that has received almost 50,000 shares, likes and comments on Facebook.

Currently, here are the top five most downloaded abstracts on ����ֱ�� Scholar:

• - 92,990 by Isabel Paner ’18, who majored in Communications and Media Studies and minored in Graphic Design. She is now a graphic designer in Belgium.
• - 84,946, by Nursing majors Natalie Guadiana ’21 and Taylor Okashima ’21.
• - 74,015, by Caleb Bartholet Cimminyotti ’13, who earned her MS degree in Education and is now principal of Redwood Academy of Ukiah.
• – 60,443, Megan Walsh ’18, who wrote her senior thesis as an Education major.
• - 57,963, Marion Schalich ’15, who earned her MS in Education.