Elements System
Introducing Elements
In late 2024, GW began transitioning from its legacy annual reporting system to a new faculty information system called Elements. Elements is the new platform for GW's Annual Reporting process, and also provides other useful features. Symplectic Elements is a part of Digital Science.
Key Features of Elements
- In order to limit the need for faculty to manually enter profile information, Elements pulls information from a variety of external sources. While there will still be manual entry needed, it will be reduced.
- Journal articles: Web of Science, Dimensions, arXiv, SSRN, and more
- Courses taught: GW’s Banner information system
- Grants: Dimensions and GW’s institutional database
- Anything that you add to your Elements profile will automatically go into your Annual Report unless you choose to exclude it.
- Faculty can view and edit their Elements profiles anytime.
- Through Elements’ reporting capabilities, administrators can export data on faculty research and teaching activity by school, program, activity type, and more.
Previous Annual Reports
To obtain copies of your previous annual reports from the Legacy Annual Reporting System, please contact the Faculty Affairs point of contact in your school or academic unit. If you are unsure who that is, please contact elements
gwu [dot] edu (elements[at]gwu[dot]edu).
Data from the Legacy Annual Reporting System has been migrated into the Elements System. For guidance on where in the Elements System you can find data from the Legacy Annual Reporting System, please review this document, Legacy System to Elements Data Migration (PDF).
Support and Resources
- Reach out to the GW Elements support team anytime at elementsgwu [dot] edu (elements[at]gwu[dot]edu). You can send questions by email, or schedule a virtual appointment with a support team member.
- Explore the Introductory Guide to Building an Elements Profile.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the difference between setting my Elements profile privacy level to "Public" rather than "Internal"?
If set to Public, your profile is visible in Elements to other GW users, and will be visible to anyone once the Discovery module is enabled. Even at the Public privacy level, your profile will not display any objects you have marked as Private.
When set to Internal, your profile is visible in Elements to other GW users, and will not appear as a public profile in the Discovery module.
- How can I change the privacy level on a specific object in Elements, such as a journal article or committee membership?
You can change the privacy level on any object in your Elements profile by clicking on the object and clicking the "Manage privacy settings" icon in the top right corner.
- Where should I enter my dissertation committee service?
You can enter it as a teaching activity. It would fall under the Research-based Degree Supervision activity type. If you are the advisor on the committee, you can specify that in the “Supervisory Role” field.
- I organized a conference. Where in Elements should I document this?
You can enter it as a professional activity. There is a professional activity type called Event Administration, under which you can select “Conference” as the event type.
- Where in Elements can I enter a research presentation I gave at a conference?
You would enter this under Scholarly and Creative Works, under the Presentation category.
- Where can I document my supervision of undergraduate and graduate student research?
This would go under teaching activities. You would enter it under the Research-based Degree Supervision object type.