Latest updates

v6.15 - November 2023

• Users can add pronouns: it is important that staff can represent themselves fully and in line with their wishes within myPublications. We have therefore added the ability for users to set their pronouns. To add your pronouns go to My Profile > Settings > Account Settings. Once set, your pronouns will be displayed on your profile page below your name. 

• CRediT taxonomy: CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) is a high-level taxonomy used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to research outputs. We have added functionality so that you can record your own specific contribution to a research output. It is quick and easy to do. 

• Improvements to collect additional information from some data sources, such as open access status, and fixes to problems with others. 

• A significant number of security and accessibility-related improvements and hundreds of behind the scenes fixes. These includes improvements to depositing outputs into the repository, selecting and reviewing outputs in the REF Stocktake, and laying the groundwork for exciting forthcoming features such as deposit directly to ORDA and narrative CVs. 

v.6.6 - January 2022

• A completely re-designed interface. Not only does this bring the software inline with the latest accessibility standards, but it lays the foundations to support future projects. Highlights include:

  • A new homepage to create an action-oriented dashboard-style experience. You can rearrange and configure the page as most relevant to you.

  • Improved menu with a search box to enable you to quickly find the page you need. 

  • Re-designed publication records making better use of tabs. 

  • Renamed modules so that they accurately represent the data held within.

  • As the first step on a broader project to improve notification functionality, there is a new notifications functionality embedded within the header.

• Introducing the Reporting Hub:

  • Brings together different kinds of reports into one place.

  • Consolidates functionality for both users and admins into a single interface, allowing reports to be viewed, run, and managed all in one place.

  • An emphasis on data security so that you can only report on departments or activities that you have been given access to.

  • Lays the foundation to substantially improve reporting and to quickly create custom reports.

  • New interactive dashboards.

• New underlying infrastructure to enable us to improve our integration with the WRRO open access repository and the ORDA data repository over the coming months. 

• Extending support for pre-prints as an output type with automated linking functionality to create relationships with later published works.

• Completely overhauled infrastructure behind the impact module that will enable us to highly customise it in the future. 

• Introduced the ability to copy and paste professional activities to reduce data entry. 

• Small, behind-the-scenes refinements to the ORCID integration to meet the technical requirements to be an ORCID Certified Service Provider.

• New functionality to support tracking Sustainable Development Goals.

• Many small changes, improvements, and bug fixes. 

v.5.20 - May 2020

• Write to ORCID: you can now choose to automatically send existing and future outputs to ORCID. You can choose to only send favourites or all outputs, limit to those that have been published, and to hide private records. You will need to synchronise your account and configure the options.

• Create an employment record in ORCID: you can add an authoritative record of your affiliation with Sheffield on your ORCID profile.

• Dashboards: new functionality to allow us to design custom dashboards that can visualise myPubs data from within your browser. This is an area of huge potential and we have started with REF-focused dashboards that are available to REF Coordinators.

• REF Module: many changes to the REF module to provide all of the functionality need to make our REF 2021 submission.

• We have completed a technical switch from myPubs being hosted on University servers managed by IT Services, to being hosted in the cloud and managed by the software provider. This should result in improved performance and more regular updates. 

v5.19 - January 2020

• Updates to the menu structure: reordered the core menu to better reflect recent changes.

• Automatic grant claiming: ID-based searches for the Dimensions database have been extended so that any grants associated with that ID are claimed as well. myPubs will also automatically create links between grants and outputs.

• Name-based searches: we have improved name-based searches so that you can now include a name variant with your full first name. Indeed, this will improve the list of unique IDs presented to you for automatic claiming.

• Favourites filter: you can now filter your outputs, grants etc. to find those that have been favourited.

• Import: lots of improvements to the import process to provide a better user experience and improve the mapping with myPubs outputs fields.

• Reporting: updated the user experience for basic reports and significantly improved performance so timeouts should be much reduced. The Excel format has also been improved.

• REF Module: a new module to enable the University to manage its submission to REF 2021.

• OA Monitor: lots of small improvements to help admins monitor REF Open Access compliance. 

• Lots of technical and UI improvements, better accessibility, and many bug fixes. 

v5.14 - February 2019

• Introducing Dimensions: Dimensions is a new provider of research information (equivalent to Scopus, Web of Science or PubMed), bringing together over 128 million publications, grants, policy, data and metrics for the first time, enabling users to explore over 4 billion connections between them. 

  • Dimensions has been activated for all users. Since it covers a wider range of journals and sources than other providers, you may notice a higher than normal number of outputs for you to claim. You may also notice output types that myPublications has not previously harvested before, such as abstracts and cover pages. You should continue to claim all primary outputs, but it is up to you whether to claim abstracts and other related material. If you do not, simply reject the publication to remove it from your pending list.

  • Dimensions citations: now available alongside those of other providers. Since Dimensions has a larger coverage these may be more comprehensive. 

  • Dimensions RCR: there is also a new metric called RCR (Relative Citation Ratio), which compares the Dimensions citations for an output against others in the same area of research and year. The RCR is calculated for outputs which are at least 2 years old. Click on the ‘RCR’ link above the citation to view more detail for that output on the Dimensions platform.

  • Dimensions ID: each researcher is assigned a unique ID. Go to Menu > My Account > Automatic Claiming to ensure that myPubs automatically claims (or rejects) outputs for you.

• Set your preferred name: in response to a popular feature request, you can now set a preferred first name and/or surname. 

• Many other technical changes behind the scenes to improve the search and avoid false positives, dozens of minor improvements to the user experience, and many bug fixes. 

v5.10 - March 2018

• Assessment Module: many improvements to the Assessment Module to enable us better manage the REF Stocktake and to prepare for the REF proper.

• OA Monitor: improvements to this tool used by admins to monitor open access compliance. It now includes the outputs of former staff and outputs not REF returnable can be easily removed. A new suite of reports have been added. 

• Impact Module: Impact Officers can now only see record for the departments which they have been given access to. 

• Lots of bug fixes, data improvements and general performance upgrades. 

v5.6 - August 2017

• ID-based searches: in the biggest change to the search functionality since myPubs was launched almost a decade ago, we have now introduced ID-based searches. The traditional search used your name and affiliation to search the millions of outputs in the online databases. If you have a common name this often resulting in a long list of pending outputs that were not yours. Many of the online databases now assign unique IDs to researchers. By configuring these IDs, myPubs will automatically claim all existing and future outputs associated with those IDs. It will also reject outputs for IDs that you decline. Configure your IDs now.

• Open Access: we received feedback that some researchers were navigating away before completing their deposit. The deposit page interface has been changed to more clearly outline all of the steps involved. The speed of the file upload mechanism has also been improved. Embargo end-dates for items live in the repository are now displayed alongside the file version information in the record.

• Lots of bug fixes, data improvements and general performance upgrades.