Automated JSON / CSV importer for department hierarchies

Many of the institutional repositories our customers use provide metadata formats we can support, enabling our customers to track authors, papers and departments in the Explorer.

However, in some repositories, the data defining department hierarchies is in a format we are unable to support, or can only partially import, so that customers are unable to display the information in the way that is most useful to them.

So far, customers wanting to create a department hierarchy our OAI functionality could not support have had three alternatives:

1. Importing data about their authors and research outputs via an OAI feed, without creating a department hierarchy in the Explorer

2. Uploading a CSV file with all their author, output and department data to the Explorer, and updating it manually on a regular basis

3. Using the Altmetric Explorer with no data integration at all, and therefore without the ability to track their own authors, outputs and departments

These can involve manual work on the customer’s side, or prevent customers from tracking data they would find valuable to see in the Explorer.

We have identified the opportunity to introduce a new, automated alternative: configuring EFI integrations to read department hierarchies from an external service, rather than importing them directly from an OAI-PMH feed.

We expect this work will make our OAI connector functionality more flexible and robust for more organisations, whether they’re existing Altmetric customers not utilising our integrations to their full potential, or whether they are evaluating opportunities to implement Altmetric in the future.

1. What’s new?

• Customers can import their desired department hierarchy by adding it to a JSON or CSV file, then hosting the file somewhere publicly accessible, ready for our system to consume. We will create their department structure in the Explorer based on the contents of the file.

• Customers can host files through popular services like Dropbox or Google Drive, or use their own hosting infrastructure.

• Customers using this solution for their department hierarchies can also import their author and output data via an OAI-PMH integration.

• The OAI-PMH feed sync is scheduled to run weekly, so we’ll update customers’ departmental structures at the same time as their research outputs and authors. 

• Any changes to customer files will automatically be processed by Altmetric, and appear within the Explorer the next day.

2. File specifications

2.1. JSON file specification

JSON files must follow the specifications below:

Root object

Hits child object

2.2. CSV file specification

CSV files must follow the specifications below:

2.3. Notes on file format

• All headers are required

• All headers must appear in the exact order case as described

• If no parent_id is supplied, there must still be a comma after the id field (column count should be three)

Further information and file structure examples are available on the Altmetric Support portal.

3. Implementation process

Our external documentation about this feature is available on the Altmetric Support portal.

To begin the implementation, customers can contact us at [email protected]. Our Support team will arrange a full data review and test the setup before making any changes live.