The Elements support team is based in the Library. For further support and advice, please contact us by emailing
elements@sussex.ac.uk
Your details on Elements are pulled in from the University's HR feed, and cannot be changed via Elements. If any of your personal details are incorrect, please contact your school or divisional HR officer to ensure your details are up-to-date.
If you have multiple roles the HR feed will determine which one shows as your primary role and if you are registered as a student alongside your professional role, this will be your primary role.
Any changes made by HR will reflect on your Elements profile within 24 hours.
An informative online profile helps to build your professional presence, boost your reputation and increase your prospects of obtaining funding and professional exposure. As a minimum it is recommended that you:
-Check your personal details are correct
-Upload a high-quality, up-to-date photo of yourself.
-Include some information about your background in the Overview section
-If you are an academic or postgraduate researcher, summarise your research in the Research interests section and add Fields of research tags
Your profile consists of multiple sections and you will see all of these, regardless of your role at the University. Sections without any content will not display in your external profile.
This section of your profile is for your biography and is free text. When you have finished editing your overview, select your preferred privacy option (public, internal or private) and select Save.
This section of your profile is for your research interests and involvement and, if you undertake research at Sussex, you are strongly encouraged to complete this section. When you have finished editing , select your preferred privacy level (public, internal or private and select Save.
Use this section of your profile to highlight your teaching experience, supervision experience and interests. When you have finished editing, select your preferred privacy level ( public, internal or private) and select Save.
Use this section of your profile to include a narrative of the impact of your research. When you have finished editing your impact summary, select your preferred privacy level (public, internal or private) and select Save.
Use the section of your profile to present a narrative description of your professional interests, expertise and experience. When you have finished editing, select your preferred privacy level (public, internal or private) and select Save.
Elements will locate your already published publications on external databases using various identifiers. Further information is available on managing these research identifiers and changing the default settings.
Use the Addresses section to add details of external websites you would like to associate with your profile eg. a personal website, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. These websites will display in the blue sidebar on your public profile.
1. Select the option + Add a web address
2. Choose the type of website from the drop down menu and complete the form.
3. Select Save.
Labels can be added to your profile to aid discoverability and highlight your areas of interest and research expertise.
Add information about your office hours and availability either:
- within the Teaching summary section of your profile OR
-create an additional web address to include a Zoom meeting link. Use the Label field to describe your availability eg. Office Hours in person: Mondays 12:000-13:00 in _ and on Zoom Wednesday 11-12. These details will display in the blue sidebar on your public profile.
PGR researchers have profiles in Elements that are hidden, or ‘Internal’ only. This is the default for non-staff members. If you wish to make your profile externally visible, this can easily be done within Elements:
Go to EDIT MY PROFILE.
Select your privacy level from the box at the top of the page. Selecting ‘Public’ will ensure your profile is visible externally.
If you are a PGR researcher with BSMS, you will not have a profile on Elements but you are entitled to a profile on Pure, the University of Brighton's research information system. Further information is available from pure-support@brighton.ac.uk.
The ability to change the privacy settings for an entire profile is dependent upon an individual’s role within the University:
- Staff profiles will always be set to public, and be visible externally
- Research Student profiles will be private by default, but can be changed to public by the individual. To do this, go to EDIT MY PROFILE. Select the privacy level you wish from the top of the page.
Individuals who have previously informed the University that they wish their profiles to not be visible externally will also be hidden by default.
All users will have the option to change the privacy settings for separate sections of the profile:
-Click on EDIT MY PROFILE
-Scroll to the section of the page you want to change.
-Next to the edit button, there will be a second button which says either 'private' or 'internal' (depending on your page privacy settings). Click this, and you will be presented the option to match the page privacy settings or set the section as 'private'.
-Click Save
Your photo will automatically pull across from Sussex Direct, depending on the settings you have previously set.
To add or change your photo, click on the 'Manage photo' option at the bottom of the profile picture. You can then select, or drag and drop, a new image of your choice to upload to Elements. If you are uploading a new photo, the image should be a high quality and either a .jpg, .png, or .gif file type. The file size must be less than 6MB.
Elements supports the creation of Relationships (links) between different records eg. Users, Publications, Grants, Teaching activity, Professional activity and Record of Impact. All your elements can have relationships to other elements or users in the system.
Existing relationships are listed on the Relationships tab of the summary and when adding new relationships, you have to
Choose a category: the type of element you want to link to
Choose the link type: the type of link you want to this element
Currently, Elements can only support videos hosted on YouTube.
Go to EDIT MY PROFILE and scroll down to the Media section to embed YouTube videos on your profile. For videos hosted on other platforms, you can add links under the ‘Web addresses and social media’ section of your profile.