Tag: Symplectic Elements

Symplectic Elements – common questions answered

You should review the Symplectic Elements website guides http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/symplectic/userguide

We have answered some of the most frequently asked questions received within the Faculty of Medicine:

Symplectic is not retrieving my publications – Review your search settings

If the automated search performed by Symplectic elements is not retrieving your publications, there are a few things you can do to address this.

The more criteria you include in your search settings, the more restrictive the search becomes. Therefore you should tweak your settings by:

  • Removing addresses – it is likely that you will only be publishing under “Imperial College London”. Therefore, having “Imperial” will be enough – anything else is not needed and should be removed.
    • If you have published at another institute, and would like these included in your Publications listing, then you can include these as well. It is recommended that you use very specific address information exactly as they appear on your publications. For example “Oxford” would be sufficient to pick up items published at “University of Oxford”

address

  • Ensure your name variants appear EXACTLY the same as the name under which you publish

names

  • Reduce the number of keywords to broaden the search (having too many keywords will further restrict the search)

Adding a publication via the ID number

This will force Symplectic Elements to retrieve a specific publication.

  • Within the search settings, scroll to the bottom of the page
  • Enter the ID number (for example, Publications on PubMed show this as “PMID”)
  • Press the + button
  • Press Save

id

When the next scheduled search takes place, it will retrieve that publication.

My publications are not appearing in the correct order on my PWP

  • Within Symplectic Elements, go to “Account Settings” in the top right of the screen
  • In the section “Update Sort for External Systems” choose an order for the desired category. For example, if your publications are not appearing in the right order, choose an order for “Publication” such as “Date (descending)” and then click “Update”

account

  • THEN go to your PWP, login and click on the “Administration” tab.
  • In the section “Symplectic Elements” press the circular arrow icon. This will force Symplectic to update the information on your page based on the sort order you have chosen in Symplectic.

symplecticrefresh

I get an error message when I try to accept or decline publications

In our experience this can be fixed by clearing the Cache in your browser, closing it down completely and then trying again.

To find out how to clear the cahce in your browser, please visit http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-Your-Browser%27s-Cache

REF Mock Exercise: Symplectic Elements

Symplectic Elements – what is it?:

This is the publications and activities database used by Imperial College London which will also be used for generating publication reports for the mock REF exercise.

Accessing:

You can find it at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/symplecticelements/ – you can login with your usual College login information.

This system automatically searches the PubMed and Web Of Science online publications directories based on your unique search settings. The automated searches take place at around 1:00am each morning and you will be automatically emailed once any publications have been found for you.

Your responsibility:

You MUST review any pending publications: decline those that are not yours and approve the ones that are. If you do not do this, the publications WILL NOT be returned in the reports being generated for the REF preparation process.

Finding and amending your Search Settings:

Once logged in, click My ElementsPublications Search Settings.

You MUST include the exact name variants under which you publish. If you have a common name, you might want to include some address or keyword information. Any changes made to the search settings must be saved for them to take effect during the next automated search (around 1:00am the following day).

Adding Publications via their ID

You can explicitly add the online ID for a publication if it is not returned in automated searches. This can be added through the search settings and choosing which online publication directory the ID relates to. Make sure you click the + icon to add the ID to the list to be searched.

** Important issues to note when changing search settings: **

If you add keywords where there were previously none, the search will become much more restrictive and this may prevent some of your papers being found. If you want to use additional logic terms to control the keyword search (AND, NOT etc), switch to ‘advanced view’ within Search Settings – Keywords. Alternatively, removing keywords and addresses will make your searches a lot more broad resulting in you receiving a large number of publications which may not be yours.

Online user guides:

Full information about using the system, amending search settings, importing, exporting and troubleshooting can be found online at http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/symplectic/userguide (login required).

Enquiries: