You may have noticed that on Wednesday 3 August 2022, the institution’s Research Information Management System (RIMS), Pure, upgraded to version 5.24.0. 

As part of an initiative to widen communication and improve transparency. This is the first of regular notifications users will receive regarding new functionality and ongoing developments. Each time, Research and Innovation Services install a major upgrade to Pure. 

These major upgrades take place three times a year. Usually in the months of February, July and October.

NEW AND IMPROVED FUNCTIONALITY

Changing Pure fingerprinting technology

The Pure Fingerprint engine mines the text of documents, such as output abstracts, funding records and project summaries, patents, to create an index of weighted terms defining the text and known as Fingerprint concepts. Which are displayed in various areas within the Portsmouth Research Portal. 

By aggregating and comparing Fingerprints, the engine enables the University of Portsmouth  to look beyond metadata and expose valuable connections between individuals, publications, projects and much, much more.

The engine previously used a variety of thesauri to generate Fingerprint concepts, but has moved to a new unified OmniScience thesaurus. Resulting in a significant overhaul and, while users will still be able to see their general fingerprint concepts, there will also be a more granular split by discipline.

How the Portsmouth Research Portal displays Fingerprints will remain the same, as will the ability to modify the automated results that are generated.

Pure has replaced google Maps thumbnail with a direct link to maps

On pages that support maps (Organisational unit, Activities, Equipment, Prizes and Datasets), the update has introduced a more practical and accurate map format. 

Instead of simply viewing a thumbnail showing a zoomed-in location, visitors to the Portsmouth Research Portal can now select ‘Show on map’ and view the location directly on Google Maps. There, they can access additional information about the location and explore route options.

Reporting Improvements

There have been several updates for those with access to the reporting module:

  • The supplier has replaced the global expand button, with the option to expand individual columns in reports. This can avoid unwanted duplicate rows that were being created using the previous global expand function.
  • With 5.24, they have introduced a new lists widget option when creating a Data Story. Allowing users to create both bullet point and numbered lists that can further enrich the narrative of a Data Story.
  • Users can now begin reports with three new content types: ‘Research output contributors’, and Person ‘Affiliations’ and ‘Supervisions’.

Users can access more information, tips and tricks and visual guidance on the reporting overview within Pure.

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS

Improved guidance and support materials for users

Pure now has dedicated intranet support pages with a variety of guidance and support materials for users to access. We have developed and improved these since the move to a cloud hosted service in September 2021 and continue to evolve with the needs of personal users and administrators.

Grant Reviewer activity type

When adding activity records to Pure it is now possible to select ‘grant reviewer’ as a type.

Input of Press/Media content has changed

The Press/Media content section within Pure is to showcase, via the Portsmouth Research Portal, when research and innovation activity undertaken by University of Portsmouth individuals is publicised in external outlets by independent sources, or when an individual has provided expert comment to an external outlet on a media story or theme.

RIS has previously undertaken the creation of these records on Pure, based on information provided by Marketing & Communications, but to improve Press/Media records. Creating records will now be the responsibility of the individual(s) and RIS will now perform the validation, as with several other content types (e.g. Activities, Projects, etc). 

Please familiarise yourself with the guidance on our support pages and the validation checklist found on that page.

Integration of PhD student records and supervision from SITS

Work within DSAA to re-establish the transfer of PhD student information and supervisors remains in progress since the institutional move to SITS, and we will notify those affected as soon as they have resolved the issue.

STAFF DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING

Having taken a short break towards the end of the academic year. We will begin running regular sessions on the various Pure modules again shortly. These will include a return to in person sessions, alongside the virtual sessions that have proved very popular over the last couple of years.

In the meantime, we have some shorter virtual sessions coming up, where you can get one-to-one advice on all things Pure. Allocation is on a first come first served basis, and can be booked by using the links here or via the email address at the bottom of the page.

If you have any questions relating to Pure or would like to discuss additional research and innovation information needs, please contact the team at pure@port.ac.uk