Symplectic Elements for publication management

December 2010 - A new tool for collection and management of your research publications is now available.

Dept of Chemistry is participating in the university implementation of Symplectic Elements - a management tool which will provide a convenient and easy way for academic and research staff to maintain an up-to-date publications list.

A series of databases, including the Web of Science, PubMed and Scopus, are automatically searched for new papers. An e-mail is generated whenever a new publication is found, inviting you to approve or decline the inclusion of the new publication. It is also possible to add papers before they reach these databases. Once a paper has been claimed, it is counted as a research output, and added to the citation counts which are kept up to date automatically.

A presentation is being planned for January to provide more information, an opportunity for questions and to activate the e-mail notification process. However the system is working now, and papers are already available for approval. All academic staff and post-docs are included in the system and you should be able to log on with your Raven ID and password to http://ref.cam.ac.uk/

The default search setting is for last name and initials. Further search settings, such as address, can be added to distinguish between frequently occurring names. Follow the link to pending publications from your summary page. (Select article checkbox and 'view details' if you would like to see the full record.) Publications can by approved or declined individually by clicking on the green tick or the red cross. Alternatively, select a number of publications and accept (or decline) by clicking on the tick (or cross) at the head of the list.

User tips

Q: All my papers haven't been found - what can I do?

A: If you have published at other institutions these will need to be added to the search settings.

On your summary page click on "search settings".
Click on plus sign next to "Default search terms".
In address field select "switch to advanced view". You will see that the search term "Cambridge" appears in quotation marks. In this box you can add any number of search terms in quotation marks (this ensures phrase searching). There is an implied 'OR' between these terms which will appear after you save them. Make sure that you enter search terms in the same way they appear in your publications.

Also consider whether your name has appeared differently in any of your publications. You can add variations in the 'name variants' field.

Q: How can I track citations of my publications?

A: You can download a spreadsheet of all information for PUBLICATIONS YOU HAVE ACCEPTED. This includes bibliographic information, citation counts, data source (eg WOS, PubMed, Scopus), journal impact factor. All this information is updated automatically so that you can easily track your citations.

On your summary page you will see your approved journal articles. Next to this in the 'Export' column click on the 'CSV/Excel' link to download this spreadsheet. The database synchronises citation counts for Web of Science and Scopus every hour so every time you export your approved articles file you will receive the latest information.

Your H index (using data from Web of Science only) is on your user profile page.