Maryland Shared Open Access Repository

MD-SOAR is a shared digital repository platform for twelve colleges and universities in Maryland. It is currently funded by the University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions (USMAI) Library Consortium (usmai.org) and other participating partner institutions. MD-SOAR is jointly governed by all participating libraries, who have agreed to share policies and practices that are necessary and appropriate for the shared platform. Within this broad framework, each library provides customized repository services and collections that meet local institutional needs. Please follow the links below to learn more about each library's repository services and collections.

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Recent Submissions

UNIFORMITY IN RELATIVE HABITAT SELECTION BY BUTEO LINEATUS AND B. PLATYPTERUS IN TWO TEMPERATE FOREST REGIONS
(1984) Titus, Kimberly; Mosher, James A.; Biological Sciences; Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Science
I have examined nest site habitat use and selection by two woodland hawk species, Buteo platypterus (Broad-winged Hawk, BWH), and b lineatus (Red-shouldered Hawk, RSH). The hypothesis tested was that species select similar nesting habitat in dissimilar regions after accounting for differences in habitat availability. Study sites were located in northeast Wisconsin {WI) and in western Maryland {MD). Twenty-seven characteristics were measured at active nest sites from 1978 through 1982. Also, random samples were collected to estimate habitat availability. Sample sizes were: 87 MD BWH, 34 WI BWH, 30 MD RSH, 22 WI RSH, 100 MD random, and 73 WI random. The two regions differed in structural features of the available habitat, and both species selected only portions of the available habitat within each region. Also, habitat use by BWH and RSH differed between regions. To determine whether relative habitat selection differed between regions for each hawk species, I adjusted for regional differences -u-sing a series of 'Z' score rescalings of the availability data. Study area differences were eliminated by these transformations. The resultant data vectors were then applied to the specific hawk data sets for tests of habitat selection uniformity. Relative habitat selection was uniform between regions. For the BWH, only two of 18 rescaled variables were different between regions. Three of 18 rescaled variables were different between regions for RSH. I contend that these two species have uniform patterns of habitat selection. Differences in habitat use between regions may merely reflect habitat availability related to differences in scale between regions.
Engaging Aging: Exploring the Efficacy of Gamification in Promoting Mobility Among Older Adults
(2026) Skenandore, Keira R.; Walsh, Greg; Ward, Bridget; University of Baltimore. Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences; University of Baltimore. Master of Science in Interaction Design and Information Architecture
This thesis explores the application of gamification, which incorporates game elements into non-game contexts, as a strategy to support mobility, physical activity, and engagement among older adults. With the aging global population facing heightened risks of social isolation, cognitive decline, and physical limitations, innovative approaches are needed to promote well-being and independence. Despite gamification’s demonstrated effectiveness across diverse user groups, limited research has focused on its specific impact and usability for adults over 60. This study examines how gamification can enhance motivation, encourage physical activity, and foster social connection for this demographic. Using participatory design methods, this research captures firsthand insights from older adults regarding their preferences and interactions with gamification elements like progress tracking, levels, and more. Key findings suggest that accessible, goal-oriented features aligned with Self-Determination Theory, which emphasizes autonomy, competence, and relatedness as drivers of motivation, can significantly enhance motivation and engagement, particularly when tailored to address age-related cognitive and physical needs. Additionally, the study highlights critical design considerations, such as simplified interfaces and familiar features, to overcome technology barriers common among older adults. By offering actionable insights for designers and stakeholders, this research contributes to the growing body of knowledge on gamification, underscoring its potential as a tool for fostering active, healthy aging and improving the quality of life for older adults.
THE INDIGENOUS CULTURAL LANDSCAPE: EXPLORING A COMMUNITY-CENTERED APPROACH TO HERITAGE PRESERVATION IN THE UNITED STATES
(2026-01) Larson, Flynn; Bradley, Betsy; MA in Historic Preservation
Preservation becomes meaningful only when it honors the ongoing relationships that connect communities to their cultural landscapes. Cultural landscapes hold memory, knowledge, and belonging, yet preservation in the United States has long relied on frameworks that separate people from place and privilege tangible form over relationships. These systems shape what counts as heritage and whose stories are recognized. This thesis argues that centering relational worldviews, rooted in continuity, reciprocity, and responsibility, offers a path to transform preservation into a practice that reflects the living significance of place. This study positions the Indigenous Cultural Landscape (ICL) framework as a practical and ethical model for reorienting preservation toward place-based stewardship. The framework expands, rather than replaces, existing tools and provides a structure that practitioners can apply to landscapes to strengthen relationships between communities and the lands they call home. It moves preservation from compliance to care, from procedure to partnership, from documentation to relationship. Indigenous voices—of elders, scholars, and community advocates—whose teachings and lived experiences redefine what preservation can mean. Their perspectives form the foundation of this study. Drawing from Indigenous scholarship, community narratives, and public discourse, I demonstrate how this thinking parallels work undertaken both in the United States and internationally. If we can rehabilitate, restore, and reconstruct the physical fabric of places, we can also restore the ethics of the discipline itself by aligning practice with equity, accountability, and relationship. The Indigenous Cultural Landscape framework builds upon earlier models by advancing a community-first approach that prioritizes Indigenous worldviews of continuity, stewardship, and relationship over Western notions of access and ownership. I acknowledge the dedication of those trying to reconcile the existing authorized heritage discourse in these systems with the values they aim to protect, as I address how documentation processes identify landscapes but rarely reflect their living significance, and management structures still separate consultation from collaboration. I recognize the progress already made while offering a clear guide and rationale for why and how we must continue. Ultimately, I aim to bridge commitment and action, aligning federal intent with community leadership and providing practitioners with a framework that links ethics, process, and practice. I apply the Indigenous Cultural Landscape framework to Bear Lodge, also known as Devils Tower National Monument, to demonstrate how Indigenous and federal perspectives on stewardship converge and how relationship-based preservation can emerge from that dialogue. Comparative examples from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand further illustrate how relational worldviews can be integrated into national heritage systems. In a broader sense, this treatise contributes to theory by integrating Indigenous epistemologies and lived experience into preservation discourse. It contributes to practice by providing a framework for agencies, including the National Park Service, to embed relational worldviews into documentation and management. It aligns with former Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland’s Secretarial Order 3403 (2021) and the Department of the Interior’s Guidance on Indigenous Knowledge (2022), which affirm the federal responsibility to support Indigenous sovereignty, dignity, and traditional land use. I recognize that preservation must operate as a relational act of reciprocity that sustains communities and landscapes. The Indigenous Cultural Landscape framework transforms preservation from a record of the past into a living dialogue of care, sovereignty, and belonging.
Keeping the Bodegas, Banyas and Barbershops: A Toolkit For Creating, Growing, and Sustaining a Legacy Business Program to Preserve Cultural and Community Continuity
(2025-12-15) King, Ben; Lytle, Melanie; Farris, Lorin; Cardona, Luis; Humanities; MA in Historic Preservation
This framework document introduces the concept of legacy businesses and how to preserve them. Legacy businesses are the longstanding small businesses that help define, retain, and sustain their communities' cultural heritage. These businesses play an essential role in shaping neighborhood character, sense of place, and cultural continuity, especially in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), ethnic, and immigrant communities. Additionally, when these legacy businesses are displaced, the impacts are intensified, weakening community cohesion and harming residents' well-being. This makes them worthy targets for preservation. This document challenges the idea that market forces alone should determine whether these businesses continue. It outlines how speculative development, gentrification, limited access to capital, and barriers to business services or succession planning create structural pressures that disproportionately threaten legacy business owners and the communities they support. This framework document serves as the foundation for an online, freely accessible legacy business program toolkit. The toolkit is designed primarily for community organizers and nonprofits, with municipal governments and historic preservation professionals as a secondary audience. Drawing on first-hand experience, primary research, case studies, best practices, academic theory, and interdisciplinary resources, the toolkit provides a straightforward process and set of policy options for creating, building, and sustaining legacy business programs. This document also details the theories and current conversations in preservation practice that shaped the toolkit’s development. It positions the toolkit as a conduit for advancing more equitable, inclusive, and community-centered preservation approaches. Finally, the project argues that legacy business programs offer a means to expand preservation beyond the built environment, support more democratic practice, and sustain cultural continuity in communities.
Keeping the Bodegas, Banyas & Barbershops: A Toolkit for Creating, Growing, And Sustaining a Legacy Business Program to Preserve Cultural and Community Continuity | Thesis Project Document
King, Bennett; Lytle, Melanie; Farris, Lorin; Cardona, Luis; Humanities; MA in Historic Preservation
This thesis project document provides examples of content created for an online Legacy Business Program Toolkit intended to support the preservation of longstanding, culturally significant businesses that contribute to community identity and sense of place. It supports the thesis framework document of the same name. Legacy businesses represent an important yet often underrecognized form of living cultural heritage, particularly within BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color), ethnic, and immigrant communities. In the absence of national or state-level guidance, the toolkit illustrates existing and emerging best practices from municipal and community-based legacy business programs nationwide and aligns them to a people-centered historic preservation framework that values both tangible and intangible cultural resources. This thesis project document includes the primary public website address for the toolkit, archived website links depicting the website at the time of submission, and representative screenshots illustrating the site’s organization and content. As both a preservation deliverable and a resource for others, this thesis project and corresponding website support wider conversations in historic preservation about equitable preservation, cultural sustainability, and the importance of protecting intangible cultural heritage alongside historic buildings.