UCL's Research Publications Database (RPS)

All UCL authors must register their publications in the Research Publications Database (RPS). Authors are also encouraged to maintain a publications list at researcherid (it is also possible to link your researcherid to your RPS profile; see our RPS guide)

RPS: UCL's research publications database

UCL's Research Publications Service (RPS) is based on a system called Symplectic. All ION researchers are encouraged to access the system and check their publications profile.

5 key RPS steps : how to access the RPS and set up your profile

  1. Log in at: rps.ucl.ac.uk (login with your UCL username & password)
  2. Check your list of pending publications - approve or decline them as appropriate
  3. Check your list of pre-approved publications - if there are any errors or items missing, please get in touch
  4. Check your search settings - to make sure that all of your publications are being successfully pulled through from the data sources (e.g. PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science). Please refer to the advice below. Add extra settings only if you really need to and please see below for further advice.
  5. Maintain your publications list. This is a simple matter of responding to email alerts which will arrive when new publications need to be approved / declined. Occasionally you may need to enter an item by hand (e.g. book chapters). Please see the instructions.

You can also use the RPS to add publications to UCL's open access repository (UCL Discovery). Please see the user guide to the RPS & open access.

Help & troubleshooting:

User guides

Help - if you have any questions, please contact neurolibrary@ucl.ac.uk or rps-support@ucl.ac.uk.

RPS Information for ION Heads of Department and Departmental Administrators

HoDs and DAs are asked to monitor usage of the system within their department and to ensure that all research active staff are engaging with the RPS system. This is to ensure that the publication lists for the department are complete and up to date.

Only those with enhanced access to the system have access to the reporting functions. At the ION, enhanced access has been set up for Heads of Department and Departmental Administrators only. Further requests for enhanced access should be made using the administrator access request form and must be signed off by the ION Director, Mike Hanna.

A user guide covering RPS reporting functions is available.

Troubleshooting

If you have any problems with the RPS, please contact us at neurolibrary@ucl.ac.uk.

For general instructions on amending your search settings, see the UCL Guide to RPS Search Settings . The two most common problems are:

Items are missing from your profile. Check your search settings to ensure that all variants of your name have been included. Think about the names that have appeared on your publications throughout your career. Do you sometimes use one initial, sometimes more? Have you changed your name? Is there more than one way to spell your name? Add all the variants, referring to the user guides for instructions. If your search settings are fine some items may still be missing, if they are not contained within the source databases (currently these are PubMed & Web of Science). In this case, you may need to add a publications manually.

There are lots of items in your profile that do not belong to you. This may happen if you have a common name and you may need to add some limits to your search settings. If you only have a few publications that are not yours, simply decline them (using the red cross alongside each item in your pending list). However, if you are retrieving an unmanageable number of publications that are not yours, you may need to add limits to your settings. Consider adding a start date (the year you started publishing) or some addresses information. When adding addresses, think about all the variants of your address (including any affiliations you have outside UCL or pre-UCL) and add keywords to your search settings as appropriate. For Institute of Neurology the following address elements (in particular the postcode) but please remember to add more if you have previous or additional affiliations:

  • UCL
  • University College London
  • ION
  • Institute of Neurology
  • WC1N 3BG (also consider adding WC1N 1PJ if you are based at Wakefield Street)
  • Inst Neurol
  • NHNN
  • National Hospital
Other frequent questions are:

How to add a publication manually: most of your publications are 'harvested' automatically and added to your RPS profile through the system's regular searches of Web of Science, Scopus and Pubmed. To make sure this is working properly, please take time to check your search settings. However, some publications (especially books & book chapters) will not be harvested automatically because those types of publication are not covered by PubMed & Web of Science. They will need to be added to the RPS by hand. To help with this, see the user guide to manual entry.

How to link to publications lists from a website. Advice is available on how to add lists of publications to your website.

Queen Square publications database

From 1989 to 2009 Queen Square publications were also listed in a separate database (no longer maintained).

The Queen Square database has historically brought together publications from UCL Institute of Neurology, the National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery and other UCL departments based in Queen Square. The database dates back to 1989. From the end of 2009, ION publications activity has mostly migrated to the UCL Research Publications Serivce (see above). Publications from 1989 to 2009 are searchable within the web database (view search tips).

Search the Queen Square database

  • Click here to link to the database - remember to always use Advanced Search for the best results

  • Choose a field to search using the drop-down menus on the right and enter your search term.

    • saarch "All indexed fields" - to author, keyword, periodical & year all in one search
    • search "All non-indexed fields" - to search other fields such as article title, pages, volume number.
  • To search for an author – select "Authors" from the drop-down menu and use the syntax Smith,A.B. (last name, immediately followed by a comma, initials followed by full-stops, all with no spaces). To search a last name on its own, follow it with an asterisk (e.g Smith*).
  • To search for a year - select "Date, primary" from the drop-down menu and enter the year of publication.
  • To search the article title - select "All non-indexed fields" or "Titles" from the drop-down menu and enter search words. You can use { } around a phrase. You can also add a wildcard to a search, e.g. neurol*
  • To combine searches - use the options in the drop-down menus on the left – AND, OR or NOT. E.g. to find articles from the Sobell department published in 2002

To print & export records

  • Mark the record(s) you want by ticking the box(es) to the left of each reference (you can tick the box again to unmark a record). If you want to mark all the records found by your search, click the Select All Records button at the top of the screen.
  • To print or save the references you have marked – click the Bibliography button at the top of the screen and then use the Print or the Save button
  • To export the references you have marked – click the Export button at the top of the screen. It is recommended to save in RIS format because this saves the records in a structured format, ideal for importing into a database such as Reference Manager, Endnote, etc.

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