VTechWorks
VTechWorks provides global access to Virginia Tech scholarship, including journal articles, books, theses, dissertations, conference papers, slide presentations, technical reports, working papers, administrative documents, videos, images, and more by faculty, students, and staff. Faculty can deposit items to VTechWorks from Elements, including journal articles covered by the University open access policy. Email vtechworks@vt.edu for help.
Open Access Policy
Virginia Tech's open access policy enables researchers to deposit the accepted version of scholarly articles with no embargo.
Theses and Dissertations
Virginia Tech was first in the world to require ETDs in 1997, and continues to add scans of older theses and dissertations.
Open Textbooks
More than 50 freely available and openly licensed textbooks are among our most downloaded items.
Communities in VTechWorks
Select a community to browse its collections.
Recent Submissions
Professional Credentialing in Higher Ed: The Case of the Certified Nonprofit Professional Credential to Enhance Student Readiness for the Nonprofit Sector
Davis, Stephanie D.; Lee, Chance; Bown, Carolina (Sagamore-Venture Publishing, 2026)
This article examines the value of integrating professional credentialing programs with traditional academic degree pathways using the Certified Nonprofit Professional (CNP) credential as a case example. The authors explore how the CNP credential complements undergraduate and graduate programs by enhancing students’ professional readiness and specific competencies for the nonprofit sector. Findings from a survey of campus directors, the primary liaison between the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance and the college or university, provide insight into their perspectives on the importance of professional credentialing. In addition, drawing on case studies from three universities that have implemented the CNP in varied contexts and timeframes, the article analyzes institutional motivations, student outcomes, and effective strategies for credential implementation.
SWOT Satellite: A New Tool for Fluvial Geomorphology
Stroud, Molly; Allen, George H.; Minear, J. Toby; Cisneros, Julia; Smith, Laurence C. (Geological Society of America, 2025-12-01)
Earth-observing satellites have revolutionized the field of fluvial geomorphology by providing large-scale and spatially contiguous observations. The recently launched Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite’s novel interferometric synthetic aperture radar (inSAR) instrument delivers global measurements of several key geomorphic parameters, such as river surface water elevation, slope, and width, and thus presents the opportunity to study fluvial processes in new ways. Here we explore the utility of the SWOT satellite for advancing understanding of fluvial geomorphology across river systems in the United States, specifically focusing on water surface elevation variations in large braided rivers, temporally dynamic shear stress in bedrock rivers, and the processes associated with knickpoints and dam failures. We also discuss other relevant potential applications of SWOT satellite data related to fluvial geomorphology beyond the scope of these early explorations. By providing global multitemporal observations of several key variables in fluvial geomorphology, SWOT represents a major advance in our ability to quantify, monitor, and understand fluvial systems and their dynamics.
What do we need to know about the Chief Information Security Officer? A literature review and research agenda
Sahin, Zeynep; Vance, Anthony (Elsevier, 2025-01)
Since its establishment in the 1990s, the role of chief information security officer (CISO) has become critical to organizations in managing cybersecurity risks. However, despite widespread recognition of the importance of this role in industry, research about CISOs and the problems they face in protecting organizations is nascent. We review the academic and practitioner literature on CISOs to identify existing themes and highlight a range of challenges related to CISOs in which further research is needed, such as establishing legitimacy within C-suite executive teams, appropriate accountability for cybersecurity incidents, CISO turnover, and promoting security in the face of human factors, business realities, and budget constraints. We also propose a research agenda to address these challenges using potential theoretical lenses. In these ways, this study lays the groundwork for future research on CISOs and their essential role in ensuring the cybersecurity of organizations.
Application of self-compassion to communication and conflict resolution in the property management industry
Hopkins, Erin A. (2025-06-04)
As conflict is inevitable in the property management industry, communication and conflict resolution are essential skills for students to possess in order to have a successful career trajectory. However, existing research shows that students struggle with these soft skills thereby creating a gap between expected soft skills and observed soft skills of recent graduates. The purpose of this paper is to share details of a self-compassion intervention that is used in a property management operations course and provide student insights into the exercise to illuminate self-compassion as a concept that can be used to aid in communication and conflict resolution within the property management industry. A questionnaire exercise titled “Letting Go of Our Self-Definitions by Identifying Our Interconnectedness” was administered to students in a property management course. Themes in student self-identified traits were discovered by incorporating the Big-Five personality traits theoretical framework while a general inductive approach was employed to uncover student themes relating to how this questionnaire exercise can relate to communication and conflict resolution in the property management industry. Results show that the majority of students identify with a trait that hinders communication and conflict resolution and also provides student insights on how this self-compassion intervention may help with communication and conflict resolution in the property field. This paper equips faculty and employers with a creative technique to cultivate soft skills that can help with communication and conflict resolution.
Breached and Denied: The Cost of Data Breaches on Individuals as Mortgage Application Denials
Pang, Min-Seok; Vance, Anthony (Association for Information Systems, 2024-06-07)
While a large body of information systems (IS) literature has investigated the antecedents and consequences of data breaches in organizations, we do not have a good understanding of whether a data breach has a material impact on individuals whose private information is compromised and how much damage it causes. We overcome empirical challenges in investigating the impact of data breaches on individual victims by utilizing a unique natural experimental setting that allows us to credibly identify treated and controlled populations—the breach of South Carolina (SC) taxpayer records in 2012. With residents in SC as the treatment group and those in Georgia and North Carolina as the control group, our difference-in-differences estimations find that after the breach at the SC Department of Revenue, there was a significant increase in denials to SC residents’ residential mortgage applications for refinance and home improvement. We also find that the adverse impact of the breach was more profound for Black and Hispanic residents. Our study provides significant theoretical and policy implications with respect to the harm and costs of a large-scale data breach.