Elements

Background

After years of background research, campus listening tours, evaluation of potential systems, and project development, UO launched a request for proposals (RFP) process in Spring 2023. The requirements of the RFP were created by a 40+ person advisory group of faculty, staff, and administrators. The RFP process was competitive and included public demonstrations of the vendor systems. An evaluation team selected Digital Science as our vendor based on the system's capacity to manage major reviews and the ability to capture and highlight faculty activity and achievement. Digital Science also offers project management support and a solid change management strategy.  

Project Update

The Office of the Provost is in the implementation stage of a software platform to manage faculty reviews starting in 2025-2026. This system will collect faculty activity (in the usual scholarship, teaching, and service categories) and will be used manage the various review and promotion workflows. 

The platform is called Symplectic Elements (or Elements for short), and OtP is working in partnership with Information Services, UO Libraries, Institutional Research, Human Resources, and the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation during the current academic year, and consulting with an Academic Advisory Group of academic leaders and personnel support staff from each school and college as well as major academic and research units.

Current work is to establish data feeds from HR, from Banner records of teaching, and from OVPRI’s external funding records as well as harvesting data from third party databases, which index scholarship and grant activity. We are also building workflows to digitally manage our major reviews processes.

Main project aims are to streamline the review process and to give a consistent platform to highlight faculty effort and accomplishment. If you have questions or would like more information about Elements, please contact Hal Sadofsky and Katy Krieger. You can also attend Katy’s weekly office hours Friday from 9-10 a.m. on Zoom to ask questions or receive more information on the project. 

Action Item for Faculty

What do you need to do right now during implementation? Claim your ORCiD and connect your publications to your profile. Following these four easy steps below will support our scholarly activity harvesting work:

  1. Log in to ORCID with your DuckID
  2. Set your visibility settings
  3. Add names, biography, and email addresses
  4. Connect to trusted systems

 

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Log in to ORCID with your DuckID
Head to orcid.org/signin and "Sign in Through Your Institution." Then, add a backup email and password so you can take your ORCID with you, wherever you go. 
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Set your visibility settings
Your data, your choice. We recommend setting your default visibility to "Everyone" or "Trusted Parties" so you can connect to ORCID integrations.
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Add names, biography, and email addresses
While most of your ORCID profile can be completed by connecting to trusted systems, only you can tell the world your preferred, published name. You can also add other names, a biography, and other email addresses.
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Connect to trusted systems
The real power of ORCID is its integrations with over a dozen research-oriented systems to deliver data to you, so you can spend less time filling out forms about research and more time doing reserach. Click the "+ Add" button next to the "Works" header to get started.