LJMU open repositories

Please visit Symplectic guidance for support and answers to the most common enquiries.

Help and guidance is also available within Symplectic:

• Select the menu button in the top left-hand corner
• Go to 'My Profile' > 'Guidance' > 'Help Guide'

If you have any comments, suggestions or are experiencing problems with the Symplectic system, please contact: SymplecticHelp@ljmu.ac.uk.

Symplectic enables staff and postgraduate research students at LJMU to capture their publications and professional activities. These are then visible on your staff profile. New members of staff are added to the system automatically. On campus you will not need to log on. Off campus you can log on to Symplectic using your LJMU username and password. 

How do I capture my research publications that were conducted at a different institution?

You can reset your personal search criteria on the homepage of the system to include the name of the former institution from which you published. Care is needed here to ensure that you do not return a large number of false positive results from other researchers with the same name (which will mean you will need to spend some time during the confirmation process de-selecting each).

If you are not going to publish in the future from your former institution, once you have completed the search you can simply remove its name from the search terms in order to minimise the possibility of false positives being returned.

For help with deposits, please Check what and when to deposit from Symplectic to LJMU's institutional repository LJMU Research Online.

Why has the system failed to automatically capture all my research publications?

There are a number of possible reasons for this:

• The search terms may need to be changed or refined. Caution is advised here because of the possibility of capturing false information (settings can initially be tested on Web of Science). For example, your name may have changed, or you may have published using a variant of the standard University address.
• The subject coverage of journals and conferences recorded by Web of Science, PubMed and arXiv, while improving, is not comprehensive across all disciplines. Coverage is best in the life and physical sciences and less good in engineering, social sciences, arts and humanities.
• Despite the fact that the depth and scope of coverage of the online databases the system searches are improving all the time, certain types of publication remain under-represented. This includes books, book chapters, reports, certain conference proceedings and performances. Such data can be added manually. For example, all that is needed to enter details of a book is the ISBN – the system then enters all the bibliographic data automatically. Alternatively, such data can be uploaded from an existing database, such as EndNote.

How do I change my default name settings?

The system will initially set the search term for your name (for example, Andrew J Young) as Surname Initials (for example, Young AJ). If this is how you always author your publications, then this can be left as it is. However, if you find that the initial search using this default name setting does not return as many publications as you expected, you can add additional name variants.

You can do this on your homepage, under search settings. Using the example above, you could set both Young A and Young J as alternate default search terms. See the help guides (available on the system) for full details. The next time the system runs an automated search (which may be up to two weeks later) it will search using these revised terms.
 

My subject area is not well covered by Web of Science, PubMed or arXiv. How can I capture my publication details and enter them on the system?

For some subjects, manual entry of publication information may be necessary. This is simple and straightforward and can be achieved by cutting and pasting details from your current CV. For books, an ISBN is all that is needed. For book chapters, simply enter the ISBN and the title and page numbers of your chapter.

If you already use a personal bibliographic system, such as EndNote or BibTeX, you can upload these details to the University system. You may also be able to download a search from a specialist search engine (such as those managed by Engineering Village) in a format that can be uploaded onto the University system.

My discipline uses its own international publication database. Can I capture these publications from the University system?

If you can download the results of a search for your publications from, for example, Compendex, in an appropriate format (such as EndNote or BibTeX), you should be able to upload the search results onto the University system.

Why are the citation counts missing from some of my journal articles?

Citation counts are only currently available for journal articles captured from Web of Science. Citation counts are not available for publications from PubMed and arXiv or for those you have entered manually.

Why is my publication not in the right place on my staff profile?

The most likely reason is because there isn't a publication date in the publication field. For items that have been deposited to the repository, the Researcher Engagement Team will update the details once the paper is published. This is regularly checked by the team and includes replacing the accepted version with the Open Access published version if appropriate. Once the status of your article is changed to published and the date added from the publisher site, the system will automatically update your profile the next day.

If for any reason your publications are still not appearing in the correct order, please email the title of the output, published date and DOI to openaccess@ljmu.ac.uk.

Where can I get assistance or training?

User guides (in PDF format) are available on the help page of the Symplectic system. To access the guides, please use the navigation button at the top of the system screen. If you cannot find the solution you want, or you want to enquire about training for yourself or your school, please contact our Symplectic Help Team with your query.

Should I deposit all of my research into LJMU Research Online?

There is no requirement to deposit any research that was accepted before 1st April 2016. In addition, you do not need to deposit outputs published prior to your affiliation with LJMU. For further information please refer to LJMU Open Access Publishing Policy.

What if I want to deposit all my outputs to LJMU Research Online?

You can deposit all of your outputs to LJMU Research Online providing you still hold the version the publisher allows you to deposit. Most publishers allow you to share your accepted manuscript in a repository, although they may impose an "embargo" on access and restrict how much you can share e.g. only one chapter of a monograph. The author accepted manuscript is the version of your work that has been refereed and accepted, but before the journal has applied their typesetting and branding.

If your work was published open access then you are able to deposit the published version instead of the accepted manuscript.

What about other types of output (not journals articles, books or chapters)?

We cannot accept other types of published research unless you own the copyright, or the work was published open access. In the majority of cases the publisher will own the copyright if your work was not published with an open licence.

We do not accept posters if you were not affiliated with LJMU at the time the poster was presented, and we do not deposit conference abstracts even when published in a book or abstracts or proceedings. Full conference papers that have been accepted for publication in Conference Proceedings or a Journal title should be deposited.

We can accept reports even if they were not published externally provided that you were affiliated with LJMU at the time and have permission from any partners involved and copyrighted material to be deposited into an institutional repository. 

How do I deposit to LJMU Research Online?

Research outputs are deposited via Symplectic. Please refer to the Publication Deposit Guide. Further help is available on how to use Symplectic to capture your research and publications.

What about things I can't deposit how are they visible?

For any output you can't deposit you can still record these in Symplectic and they will then be visible on your LJMU staff. To do this save the record and do not use the deposit feature.

If you are in any doubt, please feel free to contact openaccess@ljmu.ac.uk for advice.

Links and files

Making your research data available via the LJMU Research Data Repository can: 

• Facilitate new research and collaborative partnerships 
• Enhance the impact and visibility of your research 
• Provide a safe and secure storage space for your work  
• Offer a permanent and stable DOI for your dataset(s) if not previously published elsewhere  
• Increase your citation and download count 
• Promote, and enhance your academic reputation 
• Aid compliance with Research England requirements for the next REF, as well as funding body and publisher mandates 

Research data falls into several categories and includes: 

• Observational: data captured in real-time, usually irreplaceable. For example, sensor data, survey data, sample data, neuroimages  
• Experimental: Data from lab equipment, often reproducible, but can be instrument specific. For example, gene sequences, chromatograms, toroid magnetic field data  
• Simulation: data generated from test models where model and metadata are more important than output data. For example, climate models, economic models  
• Derived or compiled: data is reproducible but expensive. For example, text and data mining, compiled database, 3D models  
• Reference or canonical: a (static or organic) conglomeration or collection of smaller (peer-reviewed) datasets, most probably published and curated. For example, gene sequence databanks, chemical structures, or spatial data portals  

Research data can take many forms, including documents (text, Word), spreadsheets, questionnaires, transcripts, and consent forms; A/V files, photographs, and film; algorithms and scripts; contents of applications such as input, output, and log files; methodologies, workflows, and standard operating procedures; correspondence in both electronic mail and paper-based formats; and technical and research reports. 

Data deposited to the LJMU Research Data Repository should be in an open file format wherever possible. The UK Data Service provides full information on recommended file formats for data sharing, reuse, and preservation. 

Deposit your data via Symplectic, following the Data repository deposit guide (PDF, 376KB)

Important notes:

1. Ensure metadata is comprehensive to enable others to find your data
2. Include a readme file using the template LJMU template readme file (Doc, 30KB) detailing when and how the data was created, collected, and used. Expand any abbreviations in the readme file and make column or row names in spreadsheets self-explanatory or detailed in the readme file. The readme file should be in plain text and include the following information:
   • Title of the dataset
   • Contact details
   • File name structure
   • File formats
   • Column headings for tabular data
   • A short description of the data
   • Any licences or restrictions
3. Follow FAIR data principles when depositing your data, your data should be:
   • Findable - data and supplementary materials must have sufficiently rich metadata and a unique and persistent identifier  
   • Accessible - metadata and data are always available and obtainable; even if the data is restricted, the metadata is open  
   • Interoperable - data exchange and reuse between researchers, institutions, organisations or countries is possible  
   • Reusable - data and collections have a clear usage license and provide accurate information on provenance  

There is a wealth of expertise within LJMU on related matters such as: 

• Research Ethics and Governance
• Freedom of Information
• GDPR

For information on commercially exploitable data, contact the Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation team. 

For Intellectual Property (IP) issues, contact the Head of Knowledge Exchange for IP: Jane Townend.