Digital Collections - Academics

1. Submissions must be uploaded by appropriate department faculty or staff on behalf of a student(s).
   • At this time, we cannot accept student self-submissions.
   • If you are a student interested in submitting a project to the Digital Collections, we encourage you to reach out to your advisor so they may begin the process. 
2. The files formatting meets our format criteria. See below.
3. All metadata requirements have been met. See below.
   • Either in the documents themselves or in a shared spreadsheet. 
4. All files to be uploaded must be shared via a Sharepoint link to a folder.
   • Authorize the sharing settings to be anyone inside of Wentworth Institute of Technology with edit permissions. 
5. If this is a new collection: 
   • Provide the desired name of the collection (Example: Architecture Theses)
   • You may provide us with a high-resolution square image for the collection image on the Digital Collections page (.png preferred), but is not required.
6. Please note: We will only upload collections that meet the school’s Digital Accessibility Policy and those that have met the listed submission requirements.  

Content

We are accepting submissions that will be recurring such as: 

• Theses 
• Capstones
• Senior Showcase documents 
• Award winning student publications 

NOTE: Content must be submitted by an appropriate department faculty or staff member. At this time, we cannot accept student self-submissions.

Format

• Accessible PDFs  
  • Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe Acrobat Pro
  • DTS Contact to get Adobe Acrobat Pro set up on your computer.
• MP3s for audio with an associated transcript 
• MP4s for video with captions and/or associated transcript 

Metadata 

• Titles: We will take the titles from the document title that the author put on the PDF. Any stylistic capitalization choices made will be reflected in the title field. Please name each file with the full title of document, including any stylistic capitalization choices. 
• Keywords: Keywords can be submitted in the document by adding a page to a thesis, a written publication, a section to a poster, etc. Keywords can also be submitted as an excel spreadsheet separate from the batch of uploads to be easily added to the metadata. Keywords are what the document is about and are typically one word or two-to-three-word phrases. They are not sentences.
  • Keywords example: Designs and plans; Open spaces, Social aspects; Pedestrian areas; Urban landscape architecture
• Description: The description is pulled from a document's abstract. If there is not an abstract, one will need to be provided. Ideally it will be less than 500 words. Please submit in a spreadsheet if there is no abstract in the document. 
• Authors: We will pull from the title page or author section and will be recorded exactly as spelled: first name then last name. 
• Language: If any other language besides English is used, it needs to be listed in the document or submitted in a spreadsheet. 

Accepting Submissions 

• We have three submission periods a year. We will open submissions at the end of each semester, for approximately three weeks: the final week of the semester through intersession. These submission periods fall approximately as follows:
  • Fall: Mid-December to early January
  • Spring: Mid-April to early May
  • Summer: Mid-August to early September
    • Your school-librarian liaison will reach out when submissions are open. Unsure who your school-librarian liaison is? See the chart below!
• The only exception is a backlog of submissions for the non-current school year. These will be considered on an ad hoc basis. For more information, reach out to your School-Library Liaison. If you do not know who that is, visit our Research Help page. 

Uploads Complete 

• Collections will be uploaded by the end of the semester following the submission timeframe. 
• Example: If you submit during April-May intersession, it will be uploaded by the end of summer semester.  

If you have questions about submissions, please reach out to your appropriate librarian liaison. 

Submissions for Spring 2025 will be from April 9, 2025 to May 5, 2025.

For more information on how to fill out the Digital Collections Submissions Form, please see the Schumann Short how-to video here.