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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.