WPI requires that graduate students submit their masters theses and doctoral dissertations electronically. The submissions must be converted to a PDF format for submission. The final PDF is required, and students have the option of submitting additional related files such as simulations, computer programs, multimedia, and data sets as a component of the project.
(Reference: resolution of the WPI faculty January 24, 2002)
According to WPI’s copyright policy, student authors retain copyrights in their scholarly and creative works including their graduate theses and dissertations: "As a condition of study or a degree award, each student is required to grant WPI a non-exclusive, royalty-free, non-commercial license to reproduce and publicly distribute, including by electronic means, copies of the student’s work in which the student retains copyright."
(Reference: WPI Intellectual Property policy)
Graduate theses, dissertations, and reports are publicly accessible unless there is cause to restrict access to the work. In approving a policy of open public access, the WPI faculty seeks to balance competing interests between (1) the broad dissemination of information of an academic and scholarly nature, and (2) the opportunity for our students to work in professional and corporate environments where information is often deemed confidential, or to benefit from their intellectual property.
To achieve this balance, access to the Materials may be temporarily restricted if:
a. The work contains information that has the potential to support a successful patent application
b. The work contains information deemed by the sponsoring organization to be of a confidential nature.
c. The student anticipates publishing their work and wishes to protect their publication interests.
An embargo may be global, which restricts all access by anyone, whether or not they are affiliated with WPI, until the expiration of the embargo.
Alternatively, an embargo may allow access to the WPI community but restrict access beyond WPI until the expiration of the embargo. (Allowing WPI-only access is still a form of publication and will not protect IP interests and may not protect sponsor confidentiality.)
A work may be embargoed for a period of 1, 2, or 3 years, with a possible extension after three years for an additional two years, for a maximum of five years total. Exceptional circumstances may call for permanent or indefinite embargoes.
Initial requests for embargoes are agreed to by the author and advisor. An embargo request is made by the author and approved by the advisor through the eProjects submission process. Embargo requests for up to three years do not require further approval.
At the end of a three-year embargo period, a request to extend an embargo for an additional one or two years (up to a maximum of five years) should be made to the Gordon Library (library@wpi.edu or digitalwpi@wpi.edu) who will seek review and approval by the Dean of Graduate Studies or their designee.
Requests for embargoes longer than five years should be made to the Gordon Library (library@wpi.edu or digitalwpi@wpi.edu) and will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and approved or denied by the Dean of Graduate Studies or their designee.
The advisor (or in their absence, the appropriate department head) is notified by the Gordon Library of upcoming expiring embargoes at 1 month and again 1-2 weeks before expiration. If no request for an extension is received, the Materials will be released from embargo.
(Reference: resolution of the WPI faculty [October 9, 2024].)
An alternative to a full embargo of a thesis or dissertation is to place a temporary hold of up to 180 days on the publication of the thesis or dissertation in order to give a sponsor time to work with the author and advisor to redact (remove) confidential information from the work. The redacted thesis or dissertation can then be published without requiring an embargo. The redaction option is appropriate when a relatively small amount of confidential content (names, tables, graphs, photographs) should be withheld.
The following policy was adopted by WPI faculty October 9, 2024:
Once the submitted thesis or dissertation has been approved by the advisor and released to Digital WPI for archiving, it is considered an academic record and cannot be edited, with the exceptions of changes outlined below, made to support privacy and confidentiality, including name changes.
Requests for any other corrections to submitted works should be submitted in the form of a correcting addendum, to be approved by the Dean of Graduate Studies.
It is WPI’s goal to protect the personal privacy and confidentiality of its student authors and members of the extended WPI community, including sponsors, interviewees, and collaborators. To fulfill this goal, WPI Library will make reasonable and timely efforts to address personal privacy and confidentiality needs that require changes to published graduate student works in Digital WPI. When brought to WPI Library’s attention by authors or others with an interest in protecting privacy and confidentiality, these requests will receive confidential review by the Dean of Graduate Studies or their designee for approval. Where possible WPI Library will partner with authors and advisors to replace or redact original submissions. Original submissions will be retained in the library’s non-public administrative archive and file replacements will be documented in confidential library administrative records.
Reference: Faculty resolution of October 9, 2024
Related Library policies and procedures:
Removing sensitive information before publication
Sensitive information, which may include names or addresses of interviewees, or other private or confidential information that should not be made accessible worldwide, should NOT be included in the final project PDF submission. Some students choose to separate appendixes and restrict portions of the project report; others decide not to upload personal/private information at all.
Removing sensitive information after publication: graduate works
WPI is committed to protecting the personal privacy and confidentiality of its student authors, former students, and members of the extended WPI community, including sponsors, interviewees, or collaborators. For example, a student author or alumnus may wish to change their displayed name on the title page of their project; or an interviewee may wish to withhold their name from being associated with a private address.
When a need for changes in submitted graduate works to address privacy or confidentiality is brought to our attention, WPI will make reasonable and timely efforts to address that need by replacing submitted graduate student works with redacted or revised works.
In the case of name change requests, the change does not need to reflect the requestor’s past or current legal name(s).
All changes that result in replacing an original file with a redacted or revised version will be reviewed confidentially by the Dean of Graduate Studies or their designee, for their approval.
To request a privacy- or confidentiality-related change in a graduate student work published on Digital WPI
Please contact the administrators at digitalwpi@wpi.edu to describe your request. The library will work confidentially with the requestor to document the changes needed, seek confidential approval from the office of the Dean of Graduate Studies, and agree on a process for creating a revised replacement document.
The author is responsible for contacting coauthors, advisors, or others if they want them to know about the change(s) requested.
Digital WPI administrators will keep a private record of the change(s) made, as part of our archival responsibility, but we will not share this information with others without your permission. To uphold the library’s commitment to archival integrity, original submissions will be retained in a non-public administrative archive, and the file replacement will be documented in confidential administrative records.
NOTE: This policy for graduate works is based on policies developed for undergraduate works by WPI faculty in April 2023. The policy was developed with the advocacy and support of WPI faculty members, senior WPI administrators for their support and advocacy; and students. The policy was informed by the pathbreaking work of Dartmouth University’s digital repository staff in creating and sharing their policies for making changes to support author privacy and confidentiality in the case of name changes; and the leadership of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in researching, advocating, and supporting name change policies and practices among academic publishers.
Changing names or other descriptions of submitted works (metadata)
The WPI Library routinely corrects, amends, adds, or otherwise revises metadata describing works in Digital WPI, including student works, to enhance accuracy and improve retrievability of the works. All users of Digital WPI including authors are welcome to suggest such changes by contacting Digital WPI at digitalwpi@wpi.edu.
We recognize that personal names used in Digital WPI descriptive information may not reflect preferred, lived, or corrected names. We welcome requests for changes in displayed names in the descriptions of works, from all authors, advisors, or contributors to materials in Digital WPI. No justification is required for a requestor’s name change to be implemented. The change does not need to reflect the requestor’s past or current legal name(s).
To request that your name be changed in the description of materials in Digital WPI, email the Digital WPI administrators at digitalwpi@wpi.edu ) with the following information:
Once we receive a request, we will change the name as requested on the item record(s). This can usually be done quickly (within a few days or weeks at the most).
It is also possible for us to add a preferred, new, or lived name but also to retain a previously used name in the metadata for your work.
You are responsible for contacting your coauthors, advisors, or others, if you want them to know about the change(s) you’ve requested.
Digital WPI administrators will keep a private record of the change(s) made, as part of our archival responsibility, but we will not share this information with others without permission from the requestor.