Several features in Digital Commons allow you to block or reduce the visibility of content when needed, either temporarily or long-term. This page describes the options that administrators can use to:

• Hide content from most areas of the site, including search
• Exclude content from certain site-level pages
• Withdraw a submission on a more permanent basis

Hide Content

In Digital Commons, you can hide a community, a publication structure, or an individual record to remove it from search and remove links to the content from pages on the site. The URL of the hidden content, if published, remains accessible to administrators and anyone with the direct link. Updates are suspended while the content is hidden, though administrators can freely make and preview changes for later.

Hiding a publication structure like a series will hide all of the individual records within the structure as well. When you hide a community, the publication structures and sub-communities grouped within it will no longer appear on site-level pages, but the structures themselves are not technically hidden. For more details on the effects of hiding, see the table below under “What Happens When You Hide Content?”.

To hide an individual article/record within a publication structure, the record must be published. See the information about withdrawing records lower on this page if the record is not yet published.

Steps to hide content:

1. Go to the Configuration page for the community, series, or other structure you wish to hide. (If hiding an individual record, first go to the top of the Configuration page for the publication structure that contains the record, then click the article number for the record. The article number is the number found at the end of the published article’s URL. For example, an article with the URL “site.example.edu/papers/5” is article number 5.)
2. Check the box next to Hide this series on the repository or equivalent setting. For example, “series” will be replaced by “community” or “article” depending on the type of context you’re in.
   
3. Click Submit Changes.
4. If you are hiding a live publication structure (e.g., a series) that contains published records or hiding any individual published items within a publication structure: You will need to update the publication structure to deindex the record(s) from site search. Click the Update ir_series or equivalent link in the sidebar. An update confirmation email will not be sent due to the context being hidden.

Updates in other locations on the site may be necessary to remove references to the hidden content. See below for more details about where to update in specific cases.

To unhide content, simply uncheck the “Hide” box described above, submit changes, and update again in the same recommended locations.

What Happens When You Hide Content?

Hiding prevents updating of the hidden content. A message will appear at the top of the hidden content's Configuration page to inform administrators that the structure is currently hidden and can't be updated. For example, a hidden series displays the following message:

Changes can still be made in the Configuration tools and Manage Submissions while content is hidden. No new changes or posted submissions will show on the front end, however, until the content is unhidden and updated.

Hiding communities, publication structures, or articles has other effects on visibility and behavior, as described below. Please feel free to contact Consulting Services with any questions or for assistance with updating in multiple locations. 

Locations where content is no longer visible after hiding:

If content was previously live long enough to be indexed in external search engines, it will remain indexed and cannot be removed unless it is fully deleted. Please contact Consulting Services with any questions, as additional steps are required for search engine deindexing. 

Exclude Content from Specific Site Pages

Excluding is a useful tool for reducing the visibility of content without affecting its behavior or availability. Communities, publication structures, and articles have options to exclude content from one or more of these site-level pages:

• The communities.html page (often labeled Collections in the sidebar, though this is customizable per site)
• The submit_research.html page (labeled Submit Research by default)
• Featured lists available via the homepage modules Top 10 Downloads, 

Steps to exclude content:

1. Go to the Configuration page for the publication structure or community you wish to exclude from site pages.
   • If excluding an individual record: first go to the Configuration page for the publication structure that contains the record, then click the article number for the record. The article number can be found at the end of the published article’s URL. For example, an article with the URL “site.example.edu/papers/5” is article number 5.)
2. Check the box next to the desired exclude setting (the exclude settings for a series are pictured here).
   
   • Publication structures like series show all three exclude options listed above. You can choose any or all of them.
   • Communities do not show the last option (exclude from feature item lists), since communities only hold other structures, not items.
   • Individual records only show the option to exclude from featured item lists, since communities.html and submit_research.html don’t display individual records.
3. Click Submit Changes.
4. Next, navigate to the site level. Click the Update site link in the site-level Configuration sidebar to ensure that the excluded content will no longer show on the relevant site pages or lists. You will receive an update confirmation email when the site update is complete.

What Happens When You Exclude Content?

Unlike hiding, none of the exclude settings affect the behavior of the context itself. For example, content can be updated and articles will still appear in search, usage reports, and batch revise spreadsheets. In addition, items within excluded contexts can still be collected using the Collection tool.

Withdraw or Remove a Record

A record may be either withdrawn or removed, depending on whether it has been published. Unpublished submissions have a Withdraw Submission link in the sidebar of their Submission Details page in Manage Submissions: 

Once a submission is published, the link changes to Remove Submission:

“Submission” is a customizable label, so exact text for these links may differ depending on whether the label has been customized for a particular context.

Administrators can withdraw or remove any content, both unpublished and published. Authors can withdraw their own submissions only until the item has been published. 

Steps to withdraw or remove a submission (as an administrator):

1. Go to the Submission Details page for the record. This is accessible by clicking the record's title in Manage Submissions within the publication structure that holds the record. For published submissions, you can also click Edit Submission in the Administrator Toolbar when viewing the record's page on the site. 
2. In the Submission Details sidebar, click the link that says either Withdraw Submission if the submission is unpublished or Remove Submission if the item is published.
3. On the subsequent screen:
   • If withdrawing an unpublished submission, choose whether to notify authors or not, and then click Withdraw submission.
   • If removing a published submission, a text box will appear to include a custom message if notifying authors. If you would like to notify authors, remove or edit the line that says “ADMINISTRATOR: ENTER THE REASONS FOR MAKING THE CHANGE HERE” and then click Remove. If you'd like to remove the item without sending a message, click Remove, no notification.
4. If removing a published submission, click the Update ir_series (or equivalent) link in the sidebar. No update is necessary when withdrawing. 

What Happens When You Withdraw or Remove a Record?

Withdrawing an unpublished submission will move it from the "Not yet posted" state to the "Withdrawn" state in Manage Submissions. Removing a published submission will move it from the "Posted" state to the "Withdrawn" state in Manage Submissions.

For published submissions that were removed, following an update: 

• The publication structure will no longer display a link to the record in the article list. In journals and event communities, volumes/issues and themes/tracks will also not display links to the record.
• The item information page on the site will remain in case there are existing citations/bookmarks to the location. A truncated version of the metadata will remain present on that page for identification purposes.
• The full-text download link, if present, will be replaced by the following text: "This document has been withdrawn." This is in case someone who has cited/bookmarked the page needs to identify what happened to the original article.

Withdrawn or removed submissions cannot be posted unless they are reverted to pending first by Consulting Services. Please ask your consultant about this option if you need to make a previously withdrawn or removed submission available again.

Other Options

The following additional options are available for reducing the visibility of content.

Access control and embargoes: Both of these features restrict viewing or downloading of primary files such as full-text PDFs. These can be enabled or disabled by Consulting Services upon request.

Deletion: Deleting is a permanent removal of content along with its usage history from the DC Dashboard and Author Dashboard. Requests to delete content can be made to Consulting Services.