Interoperability with Symplectic Elements - privacy level and user filtering

We are working in partnership with Symplectic to ensure that our Explorer for Institutions (EFI) connector to Elements is robust, and has all the functionality customers need to properly mirror the structures and visibility of their data.

1. What’s new?

• Customers can filter the user profiles, papers, and user / paper relationships they import from Symplectic Elements based on their level of privacy within Elements

• Customers can choose to filter the user profiles they import from Symplectic Elements, so that they only import users currently affiliated with their institution

• Customers can choose to filter the user profiles they import from Symplectic Elements based on type (e.g. importing Academic users only, or Academic and Student users only)

We expect customers will be able to achieve:

• More control on how their Elements data is shared with Altmetric

• Better filtering of the data they import into the EFI, narrowing it down to the researchers and outputs they most want to track, and helping users find the most relevant data more easily

• A more consistent experience across multiple Digital Science products.

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

2. Feature details

NOTE: Altmetric can connect to Symplectic Elements v5.5, or a more recent version. However, some of the settings detailed below require Elements v6.2 or above.

2.1. Object privacy settings

While describing the configuration of the Elements integration, we define “objects” as:

• User profiles

• Research outputs

• Relationships between users and their research outputs (e.g. visibility of a user as the author of a paper)

• Groups (e.g. departments) - not included in this release

Elements v6.2 introduced a more extensive privacy framework, allowing user profiles, research outputs and relationships to be set as:

• Public: User profiles and research outputs may be shared publicly by the institution.

• Internal: User profiles and research outputs are visible to other users of Symplectic Elements but should not be displayed publicly.

• Private (not available for user profiles): Research outputs will be hidden from most users of Symplectic Elements, but will still be available to certain privileged users, which may include co-authors and other collaborators, delegates and various types of research administrator.

Customers can configure their Elements integration to apply these same familiar privacy concepts to their EFI instance. Read more about object privacy for Elements 6.2 and above here (login required).

Synchronising objects based on their privacy level is available as follows:

• Public: We will only import public user profiles, research outputs and relationships

• Public and Internal: We will only import public and internal user profiles, research outputs and relationships

Research outputs and relationships that are set as Private won’t ever appear in the Explorer.

NOTES: 

• For customers using a version of Elements prior to 6.2, all objects except private relationships will be imported. For details on data privacy in Elements prior to v6.2, see:

  • Introduction to Data Privacy and Personal Data in Elements (v5.12 onward) (login required)

  • Previous Changes to Data Privacy by Elements Version (login required)

• Changes to a customer’s EFI configuration will trigger a reset and full import of their Elements data. Depending on data volume, this may take several days to complete.

2.2. User status and user profile type settings

As well as being able to choose what privacy levels are synchronised with their EFI instance, customers have additional options to filter users depending on status and profile type.

2.2.1. User status

Symplectic Elements includes an option to set user profiles as Current (i.e. currently affiliated with the organisation; this status can include both academic and non-academic users).

EFI can be configured to either:

• Import all users from Symplectic Elements

• Only import Current users

2.2.2. User profile type

Symplectic Elements includes an option to assign specific types to user profiles, depending on their role in the institution. The available profile types are:

• Academic: Excludes all users with non-academic profiles (e.g. admin staff). When a user is marked as Academic, Elements is set to automatically retrieve their publication data from external sources

• Student: Excludes Academic users and other non-academic profiles (e.g. admin staff)

In some instances, users may be assigned to both these types, or to neither (e.g. admin staff). 

Importing users based on their profile type can be configured to:

• Import all users

• Only import users that are set as Academic or Student

• Import Academic users only

NOTES: 

• User status, profile type and privacy level settings work in combination. For example:

  • If Current users and Academic users are both selected, only those users that are both current and academic will be imported (as opposed to importing all current users, and in addition all academic users separately)

  • If Current users, Academic users, and the Public privacy setting are all selected, only users that are both current and academic, and marked as Public, will be imported

• Changes to a customer’s EFI configuration will trigger a reset and full import of their Elements data. Depending on data volume, this may take several days to complete.