Publications Management FAQ

What is publications management?

This is the broad term we use to refer to the Lab’s responsibility to track its scholarly output. A primary driver for publications management is our need to comply with federally mandated open access requirements. In short: the Lab must make a freely available version of all our work available to the public, and we must be able to show this to the Department of Energy. The Lab has additional interests in tracking our publications output, such as building up division, group, and individual public profiles, gathering statistics and analytics, and tracking productivity.

Do I have to upload ALL my papers?

For our compliance purposes, you need only supply open access copies for articles published using DOE funding on or after October 1, 2015. Articles written in that period that are not DOE-funded or written while at the lab do not fall under the OA policy.

What types of work should I submit?

The DOE has guidance on this here. In short, any scientific and technical information is appropriate, including journal articles, reports, conference papers, etc. There are some types of items, such as books and book chapters where copyright may not allow you to upload a published or pre-publications full-text manuscript. In that case, you can simply submit or claim without providing the full text.

Should I uploaded drafts of unpublished work? Can I use the system to “hold” work to be published later?

No. First, you will not generally see records of work in the system unless it has already been published. This is because the system finds work by searching databases of published materials. So, typically, the only way unpublished work will find its way into the system is if you or a colleague have done so manually. This is typically the case for reports and conference papers.

Of course, we want to have all the Lab’s reports and conference papers in the system as well, we only ask that you not upload work that isn’t finished. That includes work that is under legal review, that has an indefinite embargo on publication, or any other reason that would cause you to want to change the document that has been uploaded to the system after the fact. (Published work from a publisher that requires an embargo for open access is fine.)

Can I just upload the PDF of the published journal article? 

Not unless the published PDF appears “Open Access”. The intellectual property contained in the article belongs to the Lab/the DOE/the UC, but the form in which it appears – with journal logo, typesetting, colour scheme etc – is copyright to the publisher. What we need are full text files that we can share and distribute publicly, which is why the “accepted manuscript” is usually the best option. It’s shareable IP in a shareable format.

What if I’m a Joint Appointee? Do I have to do this twice?

All joint appointees should have a single account that reflects this status. In a few cases separate accounts exist for a person as a Lab Researcher and as a Faculty Member. If this is the case, please contact oapolicyhelp@ucop.edu for assistance.

I’m getting reminder emails for publications that I published from another appointment or from before my time at the Lab. How do I make them stop?

First, you do not have to do anything with publications that you did not publish while at the Lab. If you click “Not externally funded” during the funding-linking step during claiming, you should not receive further notifications about that publication. If you did not click that link during the claiming process, you can get back to that screen by opening the publication record in the Publications Management System and scrolling down to “Links”, then clicking the triangle next to “Create Links” and choose “Grants” from the dropdown The “Not externally funded” button should be on that page that opens. Clicking the button essentially marks the pub as not LBL work.

If you are being asked to claim and deposit work that you did before you joined the lab, but which has been published since you joined (ie is not subject to the DOE’s policy) please email publications@lbl.gov with the relevant information.

Should I claim and upload papers I published before I came to the Lab?

You do not have to claim or upload any work prior to your tenure at the Lab.

We recommend that you do claim such work, however, as that will help the publications management system create a complete CV for you. We plan to eventually roll out a Lab-wide website with profiles of all our researchers, and you will probably want that to reflect all of your work. For that purpose, you do not need to provide funding information or deposit the accepted manuscript. You may simply skip those steps.

The publications system has two (or more) separate records for the same publication. How can I fix that?

You can merge the multiple records into a single record. See instructions here or contact publications@lbl.gov for assistance.

I’m trying to link grants, but the system doesn’t show any! How do I see the DOE program offices?

In the grants search filter, be sure to select “linked to” → “Anyone”.

How do I link my publications to non-DOE funding?

The Lab is only required by the DOE to link pubs to it own program offices, therefore, we have only populated DOE program offices into the system. You will find other funders in the system that were put there by other campuses (this system is shared with all the UC campuses), but you are under no obligation to do anything with those. If you want to link to a finding source not listed (for example, if you want to generate reports for such funders), we can add it for you (contact publications@lbl.gov), but that would be for your own convenience; the Lab doesn’t do anything with non-DOE funding data.

Will the system assign LBNL Numbers?

Not presently. If you need an LBNL number, email publications@lbl.gov or fill out this form and we will manually generate one for you and mail it back. You will have to edit the record you have just created and paste it in. We will continue to work with the vendor to see if we can make this work better. If so, we will back-annotated LBNL numbers when that functionality becomes available.

How does entering a report differ from entering a journal article?

Fundamentally, there is not much difference, except for the fact that the system is likely to find your published journal articles on its own, so you can simply claim them. Reports, on the other hand, are unlikely to appear on external databases, so are not “out there” to be found. Because of this, you will have to enter reports manually, by choosing “add a new publication” under the Menu -> Publications tab. You can add a journal article this way, as well, but to do so is probably just creating extra work for yourself, as the journal article will likely be found sooner or later. However, for journals articles that have been published for some time and are not being found by the system for some reasons, you are certainly encouraged to add them manually as you would a report.

I can’t log in!

We have used HR data including your job code to attempt to determine if you are likely to publish or not. Some people who have job codes not typically associated with research may indeed publish. If you believe you should be in the system but are not, we can add you. Simply email publications@lbl.gov.

I can’t find the funding office appropriate for my publication.

In the normal claiming flow, after claiming a pub, you are brought to a screen for linking funds. Unfortunately, that screen only shows a list of potential funding offices that you have already used, plus the six top-level DOE offices. If you need to link to an office not listed, click “grant not shown” and proceed with your deposit. When you are done, go to Menu => Create Links, and choose “grants on the right side. Then modify the filter to search for the office of interest. Be sure to make sure “Linked to” is set to “Anyone” – or else you will have the same issue that it only shows you offices you have previously used. All the DOE offices and many external ones are in the list.

If the office you need is still not in the list, email publications@lbl.gov for some help finding it or getting it added.

What about legal review for IP? Does uploading papers to the OA database also submit them for IP review?

No. Legal review (for patent and intellectual property concerns) is a separate pre-publication (ideally pre-submission) process. Upload a draft of your work to http://go.lbl.gov/pubreview before submitting to a journal. A lawyer will contact you.

Can I get someone else to do this for me?

Yes, users that you authorize can act on your behalf. There are two ways to do this. Once way it use use the menu system in the tool to nominate a delegate. (Menu => My Account => Account Settings => Manage Delegates). In addition, certain people have been pre-authorized to act on behalf of anyone in their division or group. You can find out who they are by examining this spreadsheet. You can find instructions for delegating a user to act on your behalf here.

I am an administrator and would like to help a researcher, but I cannot access his/her account.

Ask the user to log in and enable you as a delegate. If you need to help many researchers (a division, for example), email publications@lbl.gov and we’ll take care of it for you.

How often are new publications harvested?

The system searches a number of databases, such a Web of Science and Scopus, for each member of the Lab’s research staff. When it is complete, it starts over and does this continuously. A typical iteration takes between 24 and 48 hours.

Can I enter scholarly output other than journal articles?

Yes! And please do! Books, book chapters, conference papers, data sets etc. are all subject to the DOE’s requirements. If you are entering the record from scratch (using “add new publication”) can proceed normally for a “add a new book” or “add a new chapter”. One of the secondary screens in the process will ask your relationship to the work, and you can choose among “author”, “contributor to”, “editor”, or “translator” etc.

Does the system search Google Scholar?

It does not. Google forbids accessing Scholar for this purpose.

I have an ORCID, Publons ResearcherID, or Scopus ID. Can I enter these so the system can better match my work to me?

YES PLEASE! Entering these special identifiers to the system (Menu → Publications → Automatic Claiming) allows the system to positively match you to work and automatically claim it. You still have to add the funding info and upload the papers, but at least the claiming step is taken care of.

Note also that if you claim a pub that has one of those IDs associated with it, the system will ask you if you want to associate that ID with you. Check that it’s your first and choose yes.

You may find that the system has some ID’s that it thinks may be yours that you know not to be yours. By rejecting these, you will make the system search more effective and you will get fewer nag messages about false positives.

For ORCID, you will need to provide your ORCID password to link the account. Hence, a delegate cannot generally do this for you.

I have some old papers to upload, but they do not have the correct acknowledgments or contract number on them. Do I need to modify them to be consistent with current practices before uploading?

No, do not feel as if you need to spend time working on old documents. If you can find the paper and upload it that’s great.

I can’t tell which papers are open access and which are not. Because of our lab subscriptions, I don’t see any paywalls. How do I know which journals are open-access?

When depositing, you can check the “Sherpa / RoMEO” advice tab. You can also access SHERPA/RoMEO directly. Another useful resource is the Directory of Open Access Journals.

How can I get an OSTI ID for my publication or technical report? 

All complete records of publications in the Lab’s pub management system (ie. those which have a fulltext file and funding information) are automatically sent to OSTI at 9am every weekday morning. Once ingested into OSTI’s system, the paper is assigned an OSTI ID. Typically it takes a week or so for a record to appear publicly on OSTI’s site with the ID, so you have to check back to see whether or not the record you need and the OSTI ID are available yet. If you are up against a deadline and need an OSTI ID in a hurry, contact publications@lbl.gov.

I have a technical report that I need a DOI for, is this something you can help with? 

Yes! All records sent to OSTI are assigned a DOI by OSTI. All complete records of publications in the Lab’s pub management system (ie. those which have a fulltext file and funding information) are automatically sent to OSTI at 9am every weekday morning. Once ingested into OSTI’s system, the paper is assigned an OSTI ID and a doi. Typically it takes a week or so for a record to appear publicly on OSTI’s site with the doi, so you have to check back to see whether or not the record you need and the doi are available yet. If you are up against a deadline and need a doi in a hurry, contact publications@lbl.gov.