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Research

Research portal

The University's Research Portal showcases our research and related activities. Details of our academic expertise, from across our Schools, research groups and centres, can be found on the Portal.

If you are interested in working with us or studying at the University, you can search the Portal for named researchers, centres or groups, or use keywords to find the expertise which is most relevant to you.

If you are a member of staff or a student at the University, please find below our guidance notes and privacy notice related to the Research Portal.

If you have any queries, please contact researchportal@tees.ac.uk

Research portal

Introduction to Pure and the Research Portal

Pure is the University's Research Information System, and addresses two main aims:

  • To provide a user-friendly platform to bring together data in one place and improve the reporting of research and related activities;
  • To improve the visibility of the University's research and academic activities via the Research Portal.

Pure gives us:

  • A single source of information on research and related activities, bringing together staff profiles, HR and finance data, and the institutional outputs repository, TeesRep
  • The ability to record additional projects, activities, prizes, and impacts
  • The functionality to support the University's submission to the Research Excellence Framework (REF)
  • A public Research Portal, available via the University's website
  • An admin site where users can manage their information - this site populates the public Research Portal.

Pure is managed by Research & Enterprise Office, and the outputs repository is managed by Student and Library Services.

Who can use Pure, and how to access it?

All members of academic and research staff, research students and professional doctorate students, can set up a profile within Pure.

Pure is a web-based system and can be accessed from any location.

  • To access the University's Research Portal, go to https://research.tees.ac.uk/
  • To access the admin site and manage your profile, click the 'log in to Pure' link at the bottom of each page on the Portal
  • No log-in is required if you are already logged onto a University device, otherwise access the site with your email address and University network password
  • If you are a doctoral or research degree student, you will need to log onto your PC (or directly into Pure) with your student number and password, rather than your staff ID if you have one

Why use Pure?

Pure allows users to create and maintain an online profile, manage output records including to comply with Open Access requirements, and promote projects and other activities.

A guiding principle of Pure is that users control their own data, and have the ability to directly maintain profile and other information within Pure.

The main benefits of Pure are:

  • Pure provides the infrastructure to respond to external and internal reporting requirements (including for REF and funding bodies); and
  • The Research Portal enables potential collaborators, students and external organisations to discover the University's expertise.

The University is a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), and will use Pure to inform research assessment in accordance with the principles of DORA. Further information is available here.

Responsibilities when using Pure

All Pure users are responsible for checking, amending and updating their information, including data which will be made publicly visible on the Research Portal.

When adding information to Pure, please take care to select the correct level of visibility (please see the section below on 'Who has access to the data within Pure?').

Many items of data added to Pure have the potential to be sensitive in some way; please ensure that you take care when adding data.

All Pure users must comply with the IT Acceptable Use Policy.

Data within Pure

The following are imported from other University systems into Pure:

  • HR data
  • Student data
  • Data on external funding awards
  • Press cuttings
  • Research datasets

Members of staff and students with access to Pure are able to create, develop and maintain the following information:

  • Profile information, including links to ResearchGate, Twitter, LinkedIn and other websites
  • Research outputs and student theses
  • Activities, such as hosting a visitor or organising an event
  • Prizes, honorary awards and other distinctions
  • Press and media appearances
  • Project records
  • Courses developed
  • Impact records
  • Facilities and equipment

Who has access to the data in Pure?

Some of the information within Pure is only visible on the admin site. Only information in the following categories is currently visible on the Research Portal:

  • Profiles
  • Research Units (Schools, Departments and research centres)
  • TeesRep
  • Student Theses
  • Projects
  • Datasets
  • Press and Media
  • Equipment

The visibility of the records can be controlled on the admin site using the following options:

  • 'Public - No restriction' makes the content publicly available
  • 'Campus - Restricted to specific IP range' makes the content visible only on the University campus
  • 'Backend - Restricted to Pure users' gives access only to a small number of Pure users at Teesside
  • 'Confidential - restricted to associated users and editors' gives access only to those Pure users who are directly linked to the record (e.g. as contributors to an output or project), plus system administrators

'Public - no restriction' is set as the default access level for all Staff Profiles, outputs and project records. The visibility of outputs must be maintained to ensure compliance with Open Access requirements, including for REF.

Staff in Research & Enterprise Office and Student & Library Services access Pure to maintain content and generate reports.

Student and Library Services checks and validates outputs before they are published on the Research Portal.

Some staff in Schools also have access to Pure, for example to support research impact work or to access CVs for programme approval and review.

Students - accessing Pure and profile visibility

If you are a doctoral or research degree student and are on campus, you will need to log into your PC with your student number and password, rather than your staff ID if you have one.

If you log on whilst off-campus, please log in using your student number and password

By default, the records of all PhD, Professional Doctorate and MPhil students are not visible on the public Research Portal. This is to allow you, as a student, to choose whether to make your profile visible.

If you are a student and would like to make your profile visible on the Portal, log into Pure and follow the link from your Personal page to edit your profile. This will open a new window.

You can change the visibility of your profile at the bottom of this page, under Visibility. Change to 'Public - No Restriction' and click the save button to make your profile visible on the Portal.

If you make your profile visible on Pure and subsequently request 'No Publicity' within the University's student records system, you will need to change the visibility of your Pure profile separately by selecting 'Backend - restricted to Pure users' under the Visibility section.

Your profile will not be hidden automatically when you select 'No Publicity' if you have previously made your profile publicly available.

Adding data to Pure

Data can be added to Pure by selecting the green Add Content button, which will open a new window, and selecting the relevant content type.

Please select the content type you wish to create, and work through the fields in the template provided (e.g. for a journal article).

Mandatory fields are marked with a red asterisk, but please add as much information as possible.

Adding other Pure users to a record (using the 'Add person' option) will allow them to view and edit the record, which will also become part of their profile.

Adding profile information

Select the 'edit profile' button to make changes to your profile in the admin site (these changes will then be visible on the public Research Portal).

Photographs can be added, along with links to other websites (including LinkedIn, Twitter, Research Gate, Facebook and other sites).

If you add a link to your LinkedIn profile, for example, the relevant icon will display underneath your photograph on your profile page on the Research Portal.

Select 'Add profile information' under Curriculum and Research Description to add details of your academic biography, research interests, etc.

Your HR data and details of the PhD and MPhil students who you supervise will be shown on your profile page on the admin site, but only limited information is displayed publicly on the Portal.

For members of staff, your email address is added automatically to your profile on the Research Portal.

If you would like to add a telephone number, select 'edit profile' from your Personal page and scroll down to the Organisational Affiliations section.

Click 'edit' next to your current staff affiliation, and a new window will open; you can add your telephone number to the electronic addresses section.

Linking your ORCID to Pure

ORCID is an identifier which helps you to link your activities such as publishing and applying for project funding, and brings together your information regardless of factors such as name changes and spelling variations.

You can either link your existing ORCID to Pure, or create an ORCID in Pure. Your outputs will then export from Pure to your ORCID record, so that you only have to enter new outputs once in Pure.

To link or create your ORCID:

  • Log into Pure and select 'edit profile'
  • Select the option to create or connect your ORCID
  • Read the information provided and click proceed
  • You will be able to register for an account (you will receive a verification email to complete your registration) or log into ORCID
  • Following authorisation you will be taken back to your profile in Pure
  • Save your profile record

A link to your Portal profile will show on your ORCID page, and a link to your ORCID page will be added to your Portal profile. Pure updates ORCID on a nightly basis with research outputs with the status 'e-pub ahead of print' or 'published', and which have been validated.

Adding research outputs

Please see Student and Library Services' LibGuide to depositing your outputs.

Adding projects

You can create a Project record from scratch or by using the details of a funding award (these are imported from the University's Finance system).

To create a Project record based on a funding award, go the Award Management tab at the top of the screen.

This will bring up a list of your awards. Select the award you want to use to create a Project record and click the small pencil icon in the left-hand corner to allow you to edit the record.

Scroll down to 'related project' and click 'save and create project'. This will open a new window allowing you to choose which content to carry over from the award to the project record.

Click 'create' to open a new window for the Project, which you can populate with an abstract, team members, partner organisations and other details.

Please remember to hit the 'save' button at the bottom of the window before closing it.

A Project Board was established to oversee the implementation of Pure, and agreed the following principles for Project records:

  • Projects should be used to link outputs, funding applications, awards and impact activities.
  • Projects must have a start and end date, and should not represent a broad, ongoing programme or portfolio of work.
  • Projects can be funded externally (by an external grant or contract) or supported by the University.
  • If a Project is externally funded it should have the same name as the funded award or contract.
  • It is possible to link more than one award to the same Project, in the case of follow-on funding for example. If a Project includes more than one award, the title should be the same as the main funding award or reflect the broader work.

When adding a Project to Pure:

  • Use the 'Nature of activity type' to categorise the project
  • Add a description of the project, and a layman's description to explain more technical work
  • Add internal team members as Participants (listed as the PI, Co-I or RA), and external organisations as collaborative partners
  • Populate the 'life cycle' dates to give the start and end of the Project
  • Add external web links (e.g. if there is a project website)
  • Link to other content types relations' such as related outputs or activities.

Linking records in Pure

Records can be linked to show the connection, or relations, between them. This helps to illustrate the links between, for example, projects and outputs or media coverage.

Creating relations is one of the main ways to create a rich dataset and reflect a body of work within Pure.

Relations can be created towards the end of each record. All related content will be show on the same page on the Research Portal (for example, linked research outputs will be listed on a Project page, and vice versa).

Creating a CV in Pure

All users can create a CV in Pure, selecting from either:

  • A public CV, which will be available on your profile page on the Research Portal. It is possible to have only one public CV at a time
  • A private CV, which can be exported to PDF and Word, and is not visible to anyone else. You can create more than one private CV

In both cases, you can select which information to include as part of your CV, choosing from your populated sections of Pure.

To create a CV, click to Add Content from your Personal page. This will open a new window. Select the Curriculum Vitae option and choose which type of CV you would like to create.

Select which categories you would like to include and click on each header to control the content. For example, you can choose which types of output to include, or set a date range for the content.

New content such as outputs will be automatically included in your CV, unless you choose to make a content type static using the 'Dynamic / static list' option within each content type.

Your CV can be edited on the screen and exported as Word document or a PDF.

Customising Pure

You can customise Pure by selecting 'edit profile' and 'Portal profile'. This gives the option to:

  • Hide the collaboration map which appears by default on your profile page
  • Control which affiliations show on your profile
  • Show citations on your output records

You can also select 'Highlighted content' to pin content to the top of your list of outputs, projects, press and media records, and student theses. By default, the most recent content appears at the top of the list, so highlighting content will allow you to showcase your most significant work or activities.

 

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