1. Taking back control: the Pure approach to institutional reporting and REF management
Manya Buchan, Pure Product Manager
James Toon, Pure Customer Consultant
ARMA
Liverpool
6 June 2017

2. What does Pure as a CRIS do?
Support data-driven decision making, for increased competitiveness
Through researcher-centric reporting on the range of academic activity, datasets, output and impact, from one authoritative source of interrelated data
Facilitate effective academic showcasing, discovery and networking, for increased collaboration
Through semantic research expertise profiling (fingerprinting), showcasing of academic activity, output and impact, and public sharing of research outcomes (institutional repository, portal)
Streamline compliance, for increased efficiency
Through bespoke support for national assessments in specific markets (REF, SEP, ERA, BFI), and enabling compliance with open access requirements and other mandates and policies
Optimise funding applications and simple awards management, for increased funding
Through facilitating better matching of potential applicants to opportunities, and simple pre- and post-award process management

3. What should REF Managers expect from a CRIS?
Ongoing capture of research activity and evidence
Submission preparation and management
Visibility / confidentiality
Audit support
Key dates
Teamwork!

4. Teamwork Engaged user community Identified REF lead(s) Supplier
Commitment
Expertise

5. Capture Research Activity
Datamodel
Comprehensive
Robust
REF-relevant content types
Researchers
Research outputs
Impact
Students
Research Income
Activities
Prizes
Press / Media

6. Capture Research Activity
CERIF compatible
robust
rich
used worldwide

7. Capture Research Activity
Integrations with other systems
Source content
HR, Finance, Student record
research outputs, press coverage, datasets
Interlink content
citation data from Scopus
Altmetrics and Plum Prints
Export / showcase output
HR (e.g. UoA assignments)
ORCID
SciVal for further analysis
Local web pages (web services)
Pure Portal

8. Capture Research Activity

13. Capture research activity & evidence
Looking at Impact
Capture research impact as it’s happening
Evidence claims in real-time
Relate impact to underpinning research outputs, press coverage, activities, projects
Aids institutional memory
Potentially increases the number of impact stories

14. Capture Research Activity
Supported by workflow and professional input to validate content on a continuous basis
Achieve a steady-state in terms of data capture and data quality
Move away from severe peaks in submission data clean-up activity
Enables focus away from resolving data quality issues to improving submission quality
Does have some reliance on early notification of submission data requirements
Also relies on researcher engagement outwith peak REF preparation times
Link content to ease burden
‘golden copy’
relationships between outcomes (outputs, activities, projects, press, impact, prizes)

16. Submission preparation and management : Comprehensiveness
ALL FORMS + ALL FIELDS
All submission elements are deliverable in Pure, including:
REF1b and all associated calculations (clearly-defined)
REF4
REF3b and corroborating source contact details
Automatic calculation of REF3a & REF5 page numbers, and number of REF3b case studies required, as per the Cat A FTE
Validation against submission system validation requirements
Functionality to support E&D Monitoring reporting requirements
Research Groups
Multiple & Joint submissions
Interaction with REF Submission System
XML upload, including REF2 PDFs
Ingestion of citations back into Pure
Produce REF Submission System reports and validation reports within Pure
Numerous user role types, allowing flexibility across the customer base
Detailed and comprehensive reporting functionality

17. Submission preparation and management : Reporting
Standard summary screens
View submissions at-a-glance
Highlight actions required
With ease of navigation directly to affected records
Bespoke reporting
Flexibile
Comprehensive
Supports number of use cases
Data clean-up (e.g. identify all REF1a/c with missing HESA IDs)
Data checking (e.g. compare eligibility status against HR job type)
Data quality and consistency (e.g. REF1b Explanatory text statements)
Monitoring submission progress

18. Submission preparation and management : Reporting

19. Submission preparation and management : Reporting

20. Submission preparation and management : Reporting

21. Submission preparation and management : Reporting

22. Submission preparation and management : Workflow
Appropriate REF user roles and rights to support required confidentiality and robust workflow
Workflow options must support multiple organisational submission strategies
Devolved – UoA sign-off
Centralised – Research Office sign-off

23. Submission preparation and management
REF Submission System interaction
Seamless
Automatic
Supplier needs to work with UK customers and the REF Team

24. Confidentiality / Visibility
Appropriate REF user roles and rights to support required confidentiality and robust workflow
Selection status
Eligibility status
REF1b
Visibility
REF submission content is not exposed via Web Services
Pure Portal showcases institution’s research outcomes
Can demonstrate / evidence collaborative activity (e.g. Joint submissions) using Web services

25. Audit / post-submission support
Attach evidence, input contact details, …directly on REF content
Examples
REF3b corroborating sources, including factual statements
REF2 hard copy submission

26. Timely delivery of required functionality is key
Meeting key deadlines
Timely delivery of required functionality is key
Initial decisions published mid-2017
Depending on what these initial decisions are, first phase of Pure development could come in February / June 2018
Guidance published 2018
Assuming summer, next major phase of Pure development could come in February / June 2019
Submission system released with technical documentation and validation rules early 2020
Would expect final Pure development delivered potentially June 2020
Submission November 2020

27. Thank you! Manya Buchan, Pure Product Manager
James Toon, Pure Customer Consultant
ARMA
Liverpool
6 June 2017