UNIWeb is a collection of workflow and networking technologies that address the needs of academic institutions. The latest version of the software comes with innovations in the areas of web presence for researchers, groups, projects, equipment, and publications. With these tools, academics can develop an online presence for themselves and their labs to improve discoverability both within and outside an institution. This alternative method for discovery opens up new potential for fostering collaborations, and to attract talented prospective students, new faculty and industry partners to the institution.

The time-tested workflow component addresses ongoing issues such as time-consuming CV editing and activity reporting, necessary tasks that take researchers away from their research projects. With a researcher’s academic data, UNIWeb operates like a personal assistant, simplifying tasks such as completing a Canadian Common CV (CCV), generating an annual activity report or keeping an online academic profile up to date. Academic data can be entered into UNIWeb by users or their delegates, and imported from the CCV. Publications can also be imported from all major repositories. With the information in the system, it’s ready to be used and reused to forward the goals of researchers and the institution.

Reporting & Reviewing

UNIWeb addresses two key stages in the research cycle: the maintenance of an academic CV for funding agencies, and the management of academic data for activity reporting and the evaluation of research outputs.

Reporting annual activities and producing academic CV’s can be reduced to a few clicks. A researcher chooses the report template and UNIWeb generates a Word document based on it. Administrative staff can produce these reports as well, obtaining the bulk of the reports they need without the involvement of the researchers. It is all downloaded from the academic information stored in UNIWeb.

Reviewers benefit from this system as well. Every report has the same consistent style, and data can be presented based on clarity for the reader. Reviewers assess the well-formatted reports quickly and easily.

Further, reports are not a necessary step to generate metrics for academic units. UNIWeb comes with a rich list of predefined academic metrics for administrators to use to evaluate outputs and produce reports at the level of a department or faculty, or for custom groups of researchers. These metrics include statistics on research funding, supervisions, awards, publications, and more. All of this is taken directly from the CVs of researchers and reuses their data entry effort made for funding competitions. It is also possible to create new metrics, and if necessary, expand what is captured in the UNIWeb CV. The data required to produce these metrics, and the results themselves, can be downloaded as an excel file, allowing administration to use the data as they wish.

Delegating tasks

Researchers don’t work alone, and UNIWeb is designed to allow users to get the help they need. With account delegation, researchers can have assistants added to their accounts without having to share personal passwords. The delegates can update CV and profile information, or prepare the CV for a funding competition. The researcher can request or remove access of a delegate at any time. Passwords stay private, while academics can distribute tasks to assistants.

CCV Integration

CCV Sync is for researchers who apply for funding that requires an up-to-date Canadian Common CV (CCV). Researchers can share data between the CCV website and UNIWeb, allowing them to reuse the data they supply to funding agencies for internal reports and vice versa. The UNIWeb CV also includes all of the CCV funding templates, and stays current with the CCV website’s updates.

ORCiD integration

UNIWeb 2017 adds new capabilities for giving an online presence to research groups and projects. UNIWeb 2017 adds new capabilities for giving an online presence to research groups and projects. UNIWeb 2017 adds new capabilities for giving an online presence to research groups and projects. UNIWeb 2017 adds new capabilities for giving an online presence to research groups and projects. UNIWeb 2017 adds new capabilities for giving an online presence to research groups and projects. UNIWeb 2017 adds new capabilities for giving an online presence to research groups and projects. UNIWeb 2017 adds new capabilities for giving an online presence to research groups and projects. UNIWeb 2017 adds new capabilities for giving an online presence to research groups and projects. UNIWeb 2017 adds new capabilities for giving an online presence to research groups and projects. UNIWeb 2017 adds new capabilities for giving an online presence to research groups and projects.

UNIWeb 2017 adds new capabilities for giving an online presence to research groups and projects. UNIWeb 2017 adds new capabilities for giving an online presence to research groups and projects

An institution-centric research network

UNIWeb includes research network functionality that provides a web-presence for researchers, research groups, projects, publications, and shared resources. This module fills a gap in how researchers find collaboration opportunities within an institution. It also integrates with the website of the institution in order to offer a web tool that prospective students, industry partners and other members of the international community can use to find academics within the institution.

UNIWeb aims to make every element in the physical research community of an institution discoverable online. Public and private online profiles for researchers, publications, projects, and groups can now be created, and are automatically linked to reveal the partnerships and potential knowledge base that faculty have available. This network facilitates the discovery of people and research relevant to a visitor’s interests. UNIWeb’s profiles can complement or take the place of existing institutional web profiles.

Beyond sharing knowledge, the network can simplify sharing physical resources. Does a team have equipment, lab space, or tools available? Researchers can maximize the use of physical resources by listing what is available to be shared.

A UNIWeb network is designed to address the needs of an institution and its own local research community. Rich and diverse environments such as universities can benefit from networks that permit the same open-ended networking as global networks, as well as all the benefits of having researchers working physically close by. It complements the global academic networks, such as ResearchGate and Academia.edu, which emphasize world-wide connections, by focusing its attention on the community of researchers within an institution, and their connections with external collaborators. The primary focus of a UNIWeb network is to capture the richness of interests, projects, groups, publications and interactions within a community of researchers under a common umbrella. The intangible connections between researchers and projects are made explicit online to be discovered both from within the local community and from the community at large.

The local nature of UNIWeb fills a gap in how researchers connect and share information with others. Social dynamics within an institution are different from those in the global research population. For instance, UNIWeb proactively connects researchers based on common interests, while a similar approach in a global network would be overwhelming. Moreover, the participation of users in a local network can be encouraged by taking advantage of their physical proximity. Local connections discovered through the network can lead to research collaborations. Shareable resources can be publicized online. The mission of UNIWeb is to bring online what is happening within the well-established physical network at an institution. New opportunities can be discovered in the network as it flexes and grows with the additions and departures of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and academics.

Increasing Discoverability

University websites often have a great deal of information that visitors would be interested in, if only they could find it. Discoverability is a measure of how easily information can be found on a website, including information that one is actively looking for, and information that is relevant, but that one would not even think of searching for. There are several complementary techniques for improving discoverability, including organizing information in a logical manner, indexing all content in order to enable accurate search results, and using “recommenders.” The latter is, for example, what online stores use when they suggest items to buy based on past purchases. UNIWeb employs all these techniques to increase the discoverability of researchers and their work within a university. When integrated with the website of a university, it creates an interactive experience that invites researchers, students and web visitors to explore and discover.

UNIWeb adds new life to institutional webpages. Faculty and staff can keep their institutional web profiles updated with little effort, helping web visitors find the most current research of the faculty. UNIWeb’s system is faster than traditional methods of utilizing an IT person to manage content updates. It only takes a few steps to add new publications to an institutional web profile, tag them with research topics, and link them to research projects. This then allows web visitors to find research outputs by topic and discover the projects that produced the work. Moreover, it better positions the institutional website as a go-to place to discover new academic contributions.

Beyond web profiles

UNIWeb 2017 adds new capabilities for giving an online presence to research groups and projects