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 View and Download statistics have been archived and we are actively working on a non-Samvera solution to make analytics data available again.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.

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.