Deposit your research outputs in Symplectic

It is a requirement of the University Research Outputs Policy that you deposit all newly accepted research outputs in Symplectic. 

Symplectic is the University's system used by staff and postgraduate researchers to record and upload research outputs and to record impact and professional activities. It also holds grants information. 

You can access Symplectic at symplectic.leeds.ac.uk using Single Sign On (SSO).

Submit for REF

A wide range of output types can be submitted for REF, but it is a requirement of the REF Open Access Policy that the author accepted manuscripts of journal articles and conference papers are deposited on acceptance. Other outputs should also be deposited, for example monographs and book chapters, but this is not a REF requirement.

Deposit newly accepted journal articles and conference papers in Symplectic

To deposit your work, you will require the following:

• details of title, author(s), date of acceptance, journal name or conference name and start date
• a copy of the author accepted version of the output.

The author accepted manuscript (AAM) should be formatted as a PDF (preferred) or a Word document. If you don’t have a copy of the full text, you should still record basic details about the output and add a note explaining why the AAM is not available, using the comments box on the deposit screen in Symplectic.

There are printable guides on depositing research outputs in Symplectic (PDF) for journal articles and conference papers and for preprints.

Support staff in some schools and faculties will deposit outputs to Symplectic for you. Check your school's open access procedure.

Document accessibility

Where possible any Word or PDF files uploaded should meet accessibility standards. The University’s Digital Accessibility guidance tells you how to create accessible content. 

There are also accessibility checklists to use when creating Word or PDF documents.

How to deposit published outputs in Symplectic

All outputs nominated for the REF must have a record in Symplectic.

To deposit these outputs you should visit Symplectic and check to see if any bibliographic details already exist. If they do, you can proceed to add the author accepted manuscript using the guides provided above. If they don’t, you will need to create a record for the output before you can deposit the full text.

Adding all your research outputs to Symplectic will mean they appear on your publications list on your professional profile. Guidance on using Symplectic to display research outputs on your profile can be found in the help area of Symplectic.

After you deposit your output

The Libraries check newly accepted journal articles and conference papers as a priority. Please leave enough time for Libraries staff to check your deposit by depositing it as soon as possible after acceptance.

Once deposited, the Libraries will apply the rights retention element of the University Research Outputs Policy and make all research articles, including reviews and conference papers and individual chapters in edited collections, published with these publishers, immediately open access by applying a CC-BY licence to the AAM.

Otherwise, the normal publisher policy and specified embargo period will be applied and the file will be made publicly available from the institutional repository, White Rose Research Online (WRRO), as soon as copyright policies and licensing requirements permit. You will only be contacted if there is a problem.

Note: When you deposit your research output in Symplectic you can use the deposit comments box to opt out of the institutional rights retention requirement. Please email the Research Services team via research@library.leeds.ac.uk as early as possible if you think there are exceptional circumstances that will mean that you cannot apply rights retention.