Symplectic Elements: An Introduction for New Users

Symplectic Elements is a highly-configurable research management system which ingests data from multiple sources to build a truly comprehensive picture of your organisational data. You can structure and connect scholarly information throughout the research lifecycle, reducing administrative burden, deriving powerful new insights, and showcasing the real-word impact of your research.

Elements captures data related to researchers' scholarly activities and makes that data available for a number of purposes. Elements groups data into categories, and within each category, a number of types are possible. The categories are: research outputs, grants, professional activities, teaching activities, impact & engagement, projects, and equipment. Where possible, Elements uses integrations to harvest data from authoritative sources, such as outputs and citation information from publisher databases (e.g. Dimensions, Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, etc), or grant and teaching information organisational sources of truth (e.g. grant management systems, student management systems, course management systems, etc). We also rely on persistent identifiers to disambiguate people and data and to make data capture simpler.

Once you've begun building your Elements data sets, you can use make use of your data in a range of administrative and organisational processes and workflows. You can gain insights by analysing your data in Elements, or in the reporting database, or by sending data to your business insights data lake. Additionally, you can make use of Elements various "solutions" to manage and support public profiles, assessment exercises, annual reviews, open access policies and mandates, and research funding workflows. The processes and workflows Elements instance can support will depend on your licence. Out of the box, Elements includes the Activities & Outcomes Solution, which provides you with the ability to capture and analyse all data categories. Additional licences are required for the following solutions:

• Discovery Solution - showcasing researchers and research equipment

• Research Funding Solution (RFS) - supporting the research funding process

• Evaluation and Review Solution - tracking research impact and supporting review and assessment processes

• Open Access Engagement Solution - supporting open access and integration with repository platforms (Figshare, DSpace, Hyrax)

Below are a number of videos providing an focused on key aspects of Elements. These are to provide an orientation, before you dive into the more detailed support articles. Make some popcorn, pull up a chair, sit back, and enjoy!

1. Symplectic Elements Orientation: Elements overview (6:39) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aca0GSxfbDw

2. Symplectic Elements Orientation: Homepage and data categories (4:42) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf1lQzBauCA

3. Symplectic Elements Orientation: Publication data sources (1:31) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcb2LmT0RQQ

4. Symplectic Elements Orientation: Publications list (0:46) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMmPYmVB3SQ

5. Symplectic Elements Orientation: Metrics (1:15) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KusGVbr7h5o
   

6. Symplectic Elements Orientation: Labels (0:51) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJLhdnv4W6E

7. Symplectic Elements Orientation: Relationships (1:22) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0OQ6r3Ciy4
   

8. Symplectic Elements Orientation: Deposit workflow (3:58) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQdk3Nkzp_8

9. Symplectic Elements Orientation: Elements profile (4:55) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMmPYmVB3SQ
   

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/103pj22kXeJqy_SToGqNUzN22672p_x4Z/view?usp=sharing