Library Research Support

This section describes some of  the key things to do when you first start using Elements so that it is set up to work effectively for you.

Finding your way around Elements

Logging in to Elements.

• Go to: https://elements.shu.ac.uk
• Login with your usual SHU username and password.

Navigating Elements.

• The menu on the left of the screen enables you to navigate around Elements. 
• The ‘Home’ icon returns you to your Homepage and
• The ‘Profile and work’ icon is where you can find links to your profile, scholarly & creative works and professional activities.

Your Homepage

• On your Homepage there are tasks that you may wish to do under 'My Actions'.
• There is also a ‘Scholarly & creative works’ box towards the bottom left of the screen, which provides quick routes to seeing your publications and adding new publications.

View and Edit your profile

• To see your Elements profile go to:
  Menu > Profile & work > Personal profile & identifiers > My profile
• If you wish to edit your profile, click on 'Edit mode'.  Please note that your profile is currently only visible to other Elements users at SHU.

Check your claimed publications

Scholarly & creative works in your claimed list have already been identified as yours.  The publication list on your staff profile on the external website is populated by your claimed works from Elements.

• To see your works, go to your Scholarly & creative works from your Homepage using the box in the bottom left corner.   Alternatively use the menu:  Menu > Profile & work > Scholarly & Creative Works > Scholarly & creative works
• Make sure you are looking at your ‘Claimed’ works. 
  You can tell this from the information at the top of your list.

• Check that the list of scholarly & creative works in your ‘Claimed' list are yours:
  • Reject any publications that have been incorrectly identified as yours. Next to the title of each work you will see three icons. Click on the menu icon (3 dots) for further options. One of these is the ‘Reject’ option.
  • You can click on the title of a publication to see the full publication details.

Check and add your research identifiers

Elements uses your research identifiers to automatically add scholarly & creative works to your Elements claimed list.  It is helpful to check that any identifiers/email addresses are yours and to add any that are missing.

• Have a look at your research identifiers:
  Menu > Profile & work > Personal profile & identifiers > My research identifiers
• Check that any identifiers already on Elements are yours. You can remove any identifiers which are incorrectly assigned to you.
• Add any additional identifiers that would help to identify you and your works.
• If you have an ORCID claimed, connect it to Elements.  You will need to know your ORCID username and password to do this.

Claim or reject pending scholarly & creative works

Elements searches external databases for works which are possibly yours.  These are added to your pending list and you can then choose to claim or reject them.

• To see your works, go to your Scholarly & creative works from your Homepage using the box in the bottom left corner.   
  Alternatively use the menu:  Menu > Profile & work > Scholarly & Creative Works > Scholarly & creative works
• The default list will usually be your ‘Claimed’ works.  Click on the ‘Pending’ tab to see the works that could be yours.
• Claim or reject these works using the buttons next to each one. 

Check and amend your search settings

You can use the search settings to make the searches which add publications to your 'Pending' list more accurate in finding publications that are yours.

• Go to Menu > Profile & work > Tools & Settings > Search settings
• Look under 'Name variants' and add any appropriate variations of your name.  You do not need to add variants with your full given names, the system works with initials only.

The accuracy of the search for your publications is improved by the addition of affiliation names in the 'Addresses' section of the search settings.   This is particularly important if you have a name shared by researchers at other institutions.

• Add affiliations to your addresses section if they are not already there. 

When you have finished making changes to your settings click the SAVE button at the bottom of the page.

Managing your publication list on your external staff profile

View your claimed Scholarly & creative works.

Next to the title of each work is a row of icons enabling you to do a variety of tasks.  

• 'Favourite' icon (heart).
  Favourites appear under the Favourite publications tab on your Elements profile and will appear at the top of your list of publications on your staff profile on the external web pages
• 'Privacy' icon (world).
  You can change your ‘Relationship privacy’ with a work. If you do not wish a work to display on your profile on the external web pages, you can change your relationship privacy with the work to internal or private. Please note that works set with an internal or private relationship privacy can still be found by searching Elements and on the profiles of co-authors.

There is a delay before your changes appear on your external profile - please check back the following day.

• On your Elements Home page, choose the action 'Deposit accepted scholarly & creative works'.
   
• Choose to deposit a journal article, conference paper or chapter.
   
• Follow the steps to add the details of your output. 
  Elements may be able to find the details of your article or you may need to add the details manually.

• If you manually add the details, you will be asked to indicate whether you research is in scope of the new policy and whether you included the Rights Retention Statement in your submission.
   
• When you reach the ‘Link funding’ screen, make sure you link your paper to the correct grant, if applicable.

• When you reach the ‘Deposit publication’ screen, select the file you wish to upload and then please add a licence and an embargo period.
   
• In most cases you would select the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence and ‘no embargo’ as you will have followed one of the routes to open access that enables this. If your chosen route is green open access and you intend to opt out of the policy (request a waiver), you can choose another licence and/or another embargo.
   
• Click on the 'Deposit' button.
   

You can deposit scholarly and creative work of many types on Elements - books, reports, presentations, exhibitions, etc.

• From the 'Scholarly & creative works' section on your Home page, click on the '+ADD NEW' link and select the type of scholarly work you would like to add.
   
• Follow the steps to add the details of your work.
   
• Deposit a manuscript or file.  Your manuscript will be made available on SHURA if possible and according to your publisher's policies.

• Go to your Scholarly & creative works in Elements.
   
• Click on the title of the paper or chapter to see the full record.
   
• Scroll down to the 'Repository' section and choose 'Deposit'.
  
   
• When you reach the ‘Deposit publication’ screen, click on the 'Choose file' button and find the file you wish to upload.  The file to use will usually be the author accepted manuscript.  This is the version which includes changes in response to peer-review but before the publisher's typesetting and formatting has been applied.  In the 'File version' box choose the version that you are uploading.  Click on the 'Use this file' button.

• You will then see the options to specify an embargo and a reuse licence.  In most cases you would select the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence and ‘no embargo’ as you will have followed one of the routes to open access that enables this. If your chosen route is green open access and you intend to opt out of the SHU policy (request a waiver), you can choose another licence and/or another embargo.
  

• Click on the 'Deposit' button.

The video below will show you how to adjust your automatic claiming settings and your search settings for populating the “Pending” tab:

The first 3 minutes of this video deals with journal articles and conference papers. For all other research outputs move forward to 3:12.

To see a demonstration of how to deposit a file go to 2 minutes 10s into the video.

Use Elements to deposit in SHURA.  You can deposit many types of output.

• Journal articles and conference papers with an ISSN. 
• Book chapters.
• Many other output types, including artefacts, performances, reports and media can be deposited in SHURA via Elements.
• Unpublished conference items.
• You must deposit a manuscript or file in Elements for your work to appear on SHURA.

This video covers claiming and rejecting publications from the My Publications section of Elements. Information regarding how to chose which publications are sent to your external staff profile appears at around 2:16.

You can use Elements to help you to create a Narrative CV and a R&I plan. This uses the 'Professional activities' box on your homepage in Elements.

Please have a look at this announcement about the New Narrative CV and R&I Plan functions on the Elements system.

Help with doing this is available:

• Watch a recording of a training session about Narrative CVs, and using Elements for these and R&I plans delivered by staff from Research and Innovation Services.
• Full guidance, including technical instructions, are available here.

There is more information and resources on the Narrative CVs Sharepoint site and you may also be interested in Rory Duncan's blog post on Different ways to tell our stories.

For scholarly & creative works authored/created while you are at SHU you should:

• ensure that all your outputs are added to Elements so that they will appear on your staff profile on the external web pages.
• deposit a copy of each research output into Elements.  For example, deposit the final peer-reviewed manuscript of articles and papers.
• ensure in particular that the final peer-reviewed manuscript of all journal articles and conferences papers are deposited as soon as they are accepted.

For your previous work authored/created prior to joining SHU you should:

• add all of your outputs to Elements so that your publications list on your staff profile on the external web pages is how you would like it to be.  
• deposit a copy of each research output for the current REF period (published since 1 January 2021). For example, deposit the final peer reviewed manuscript of articles & papers.
• You can amend your Elements research identifiers and search settings to help Elements to find your previous outputs automatically.  Please see getting started with Elements (above) for more information.  It is also possible to import your outputs from a repository at a previous place of work.

If you would like an introduction to using Elements or advice on how to add and deposit your previous outputs, please contact the Library Research Support Team.

• Email: library-research-support@shu.ac.uk
• Call: (0114) 225 3852

You will find more information in the SHU Open Access Publications Policy and on our web pages about Open Access and rights retention.