Contact Us

If you need to report a problem using Digital WPI, or would like to request assistance or share feedback, please email us at digitalwpi@wpi.edu

Known Issues and Planned Enhancements

Digital WPI is continuously undergoing review and enhancements as we work to share the diverse and rich resources that highlight our innovative pedagogy and cultural heritage. Below are recognized issues and planned enhancements. To report an issue, please contact us at digitalwpi@wpi.edu

Known Issues

• Image download options - Users are reporting issues with the Download options from the image viewer, notably "Current view 640x480px (jpg)" where the images downloaded do not match the user's desired view. Other image download options operate as intended.
• Slow loading times of images - Some images are taking more time to load than anticipated.
• Analytics reports - Owing to a limitation within the Samvera Community, Digital WPI is unable to provide full analytics reports for repository items. View and Download statistics have been archived and we are actively working on a non-Samvera solution to make analytics data available again.

Planned Enhancements

• Access speed - Improvements to the system hardware to increase access speed for users.
• User reports - New feature giving users the ability to download search results.
• Upcoming Exhibits - New exhibits featuring the history of WPI, the evolution of the Interactive Media & Game Development department, and the life of Robert Goddard.

Explore Collections

Browse by Collection

From the navigation menu under "Browse", you can choose to browse collections by selecting the general category then name of the collection. The facets on the left side of the page can be selected to limit/filter the results.

Browse by Project Center

From the navigation menu under "Browse", you can choose to browse all Project Centers by selecting the general geographic area then name of the project center. This is a list of all official WPI Project Centers and each link will take you to the works associated with the selected center. The facets on the left side of the page can be selected to limit/filter the results.

Single Search

The persistent Single Search box (located on every Digital WPI page) can be used to search all items in Digital WPI. Enter keywords, phrases, authors, or other terms in the search box, and then click the magnifying glass icon next to the box or click the return/enter key. Searching is not case-sensitive. For example, searching for "washington monument" or "Washington Monument" will yield the same results.

A result will be returned when your search terms match text stored in that record's descriptive metadata fields (e.g. title, names, subjects, abstracts/descriptions) or, in the case of text documents (e.g. IQP report, MQP report, thesis, dissertation, monograph/book, etc.), in the full text of the resource/document as well.

Advanced Search

Advanced Search is located under the Single Search box from the Digital WPI homepage. Select the Advanced Search button to search all items in Digital WPI. Users have the capability to search across multiple search facets and match on either all fields or at least one field. Attributes such as collection name, advisor, project center, major, unit (department), UN SDG, and more can be combined with search terms to execute more focused searches.

At this time, Advanced Search only searches and matches on text stored in descriptive metadata fields found in Digital WPI records. Full text search of resources and documents is currently not available in the advanced search feature. For full text searching, we recommend using Single Search.

Filtering Your Results

After doing a keyword search, use the facets/limiters on the left side of the page to limit/filter your search. You can limit a search, for example, to content published in a specific year or range of years, authored/created by specific people, on particular subjects, in a particular collection (e.g. IQPs, Historical Images, etc.) and so on. You may remove limiters/filters by clicking on the "x" to the right of the filter term at the top of the results list. Note that not all works use all of the filters/facets.

Reorganizing Search Results

Sorting Results

You may also customize how your search results are sorted by selecting from the Sort By drop-down menu:

• Relevance - Sorted by weighing searched keywords against where those keywords were found in the file's metadata (title, description, etc.)
• Date uploaded - Sorted by the date (most recent first, or least recent first) the record/file was uploaded to Digital WPI

Number of Results Displayed

You can view 10, 20, 50, or 100 items per page by choosing from the drop down menu at the top right of the search results.

How to Refine a Search

Boolean Operators

BOOLEAN SEARCH, using AND, OR and NOT operators will be available soon!

+ or -

• + : The "+" (or required) operator dictates that the term after the + symbol MUST exist somewhere in the document. To search for documents that must contain "watershed" and may contain "planning" use the query: +watershed planning
• -: The "-" (or prohibit) operator excludes documents which contain the term after the - symbol. To search for documents which contain "Global" but not "warming" use the query: global-warming

Quotation Marks

Use quotation marks around a phrase to return results with that exact phrase. For example, a search for greenhouse gas will return results with the terms greenhouse and gas separately, in addition to items where they appear together. By searching for "greenhouse gas" you will only get results containing that exact phrase.

Download Search Results

After filtering your search results, you can download the results to a .CSV file. Only metadata related to the Digital WPI items will be included in the .CSV file. In the search results page, select the button "Download search results to .CSV file" located near the center of the page.

NOTE: This will not download the files associated with each Digital WPI item, you will only see the metadata related to the items, ex. Title, Creator, Advisor, Project Center, UN Sustainable Development Goals, etc. However the first column titled, "Digital WPI", contains the full URL that you can use to retrieve the item record from which you can download the files associated with the item.

Bookmarking

Users can bookmark items from the search results page if they are logged in to Digital WPI. WPI community members can login by selecting the "Login" link at the top right corner of Digital WPI, or navigate to https://digital.wpi.edu/login.

Create Bookmarks

To create a bookmark, you must be in the search results page. Select the "Bookmark" checkbox located on the right-hand side of each item. To view all bookmarks, select "My Account" from the top right-hand side menu and choose "Bookmarks".

Create Bookmark Categories

Users can create different categories for their bookmarks. In the "Bookmarks" page, select the blue "Create New Bookmark Category" button on the right-hand side of the screen. Type in the name of your bookmark category and select "Submit".

To add bookmarks to a category, make sure you are in the "Bookmarks" page. Select the checkbox on the left-hand side of each item and a blue "Add to Category" button will appear above. Once the button is selected, use the drop-down to pick a category and hit "Submit".

To navigate to the bookmark category, go to the white "Select Bookmark Category" dropdown on the left-hand side of the screen and select the category - you are now viewing all of the bookmarks that you have assigned to the category.

To delete a bookmark category, navigate to the category and select the red "Delete This Category" button on the right-hand side.

Share Bookmark Category

Your bookmark category list can be shared with others (not just logged-in users). Navigate to the bookmark category you wish to share and select the blue "Generate Shared URL" button on the left-hand side. A randomized URL is provided and a blue "Copy URL" button appears above on the left. Select the button to copy and paste the URL into an email, document, or message to share your list of bookmarks with others.

If you add or remove items from a shared bookmark category, the previously generated URL will show the changes when it is accessed by others. If, after sharing, you decide you only want a select group of users to see your bookmark category, the previously generated URL can be disabled and a new randomized URL can be created by selecting the blue "Generate New Shared URL" button on the left. The new URL should then be copied and shared with your preferred group of users.

If you want to stop sharing the bookmark category altogether, navigate to the bookmark category and select the red "Delete URL" button located above the randomized URL. Once selected, the previous URL will direct users to a page with the error, "The link you're trying to access has expired".

NOTE: At this time it is not yet possible to download your bookmarked items to a csv file. This is currently under development.

Delete Bookmarks

To delete a bookmark, navigate to your "Bookmarks" main page and de-select the "In Bookmarks" indicator on the right.

To delete a bookmark from a bookmark category, navigate to the bookmark category and select the item using the checkbox on the left-hand side. A red "Remove From Category" button will appear, once selected it will remove the item from the category.

To delete all of your bookmarks (including those assigned to bookmark categories), select the red "Clear Bookmarks" button from any bookmark page. A pop-up window will appear to confirm that you want to delete all bookmarks - press "OK" to proceed, otherwise select "Cancel".

Recommended File Formats

The following file formats are recommended for submission to Digital WPI. While many electronic file formats are accepted in the repository, these recommended formats have a higher probability of long-term preservation. For more information on recommended formats, please visit the Library of Congress' "Recommended Formats Statement" document available at https://www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/rfs/RFS%202023-2024.pdf.