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Library Research Support

What is Elements?

Elements is the University’s publications management system — Elements contains a list of all your research outputs and it will pass them on to other systems.

Please use Elements  to deposit your research outputs. You can log in with your SHU username and password here: https://elements.shu.ac.uk

Elements is the University’s publications management system — Elements contains a list of all your research outputs and it will pass them on to other systems.

SHURA remains as the University’s institutional repository — SHURA contains full-text documents only that can be found and downloaded by the public. Authors who wish to deposit copies of their research outputs to SHURA for compliance with REF Open Access requirements are asked to use Elements — and the Library team will process this for ultimate deposit in SHURA. Find out  more about Open Access and the REF.

The beauty of Elements is that it is easy to use. It will automatically find your work in databases such as Scopus and the Web of Science and ask you via email to “claim” it as yours.

What to deposit on Elements

  • ensure that all your outputs are added to Elements so that they will appear on your staff profile on the external web pages. You can add many types of output: journal articles, conference proceedings, chapters, monographs, artefacts, performances, reports, etc.
  • deposit a manuscript or file for each research output in Elements.  For example, deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript of articles & papers
  • ensure in particular that the Author Accepted Manuscripts of all journal articles and conferences papers are deposited as soon as they are accepted
  • Staff joining SHU should ensure that all their outputs are added to Elements and should deposit manuscripts or file for all their research output published for the current REF period (i.e.since 1 January 2021). 

What do I need to be REF compliant?

You will still need to deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript of all journal articles and conference proceedings within 3 months of acceptance for compliance with REF Open Access requirements. If you are not sure which version of your manuscript to use, check our guidance here.

Please deposit these manuscripts into Elements as soon as possible after acceptance and forward the acceptance email to elements@shu.ac.uk.

Find out  more about Open Access and the REF including details of the requirements and information about acceptance dates and which version of your manuscript you should deposit.

Elements update - January 2023


Update to Elements - 17th January 2023.

The upgrade to Elements includes a new, easier to use interface with updated menus and some new features. 

How do I add my accepted journal articles and conference papers?

The button you may have used in the past has been replaced by a 'Deposit accepted scholarly & creative works' link in the 'My Actions' section of your Elements homepage.  

How do I add other types of scholarly & creative work?

In the Scholarly & Creative works box at the bottom of the screen, click on the '+ ADD NEW' button to add publications of many different types, including artefacts, books, chapters and media.

Navigating the new Elements interface

The 'My Actions' on your homepage are a good place to start to do common tasks in Elements. Here you will also be reminded about actions that you may wish to take.

Elements menu icon    The Menu icon (top left of the screen) can be used to access your profile, your settings and the other tools available to you.

You can now keep a record of your preprints

You can now deposit your preprints on Elements. In the Scholarly & Creative works box at the bottom of the screen, you can click on the '+ ADD NEW' button and choose the Preprint option.

Relationship privacy

When you create a manual record for a new scholarly & creative work, you will asked about the relationship privacy you would like to set.  The default is 'Public'.  This means that the scholarly & creative work will appear in your publications list your staff profile on the external SHU webpages.  If you do not wish the work to be displayed on your staff profile you can change this setting to private or internal. 

Please note that your work may still display on the profile of a co-author, depending on the settings they have chosen.  Please also note that if you deposit a manuscript or file, a SHURA record will be created which is publicly visible, even if you have set the Elements record to private or internal.

You can change your relationship privacy to a scholarly or creative work at any time.  In your list of claimed scholarly & creative works on Elements, use the 'Manage privacy settings' button which is next to each work.

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