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Profiles: frequently asked questions

See below for questions relating to UCL's new public Profiles platform.

About UCL Profiles

Data from IRIS (UCL's previous public profiles service)

Updating Profiles

About UCL Profiles

Who can have a UCL public profile?

All UCL staff and doctoral researchers can have a public profile. This includes honorary, technical, and Professional Services staff. All new UCL people, of all types, need to enable their public profile in RPS: log in to RPS, find the privacy setting at the top of the 'Edit Profile' page, and change the setting from 'internal' to 'public'. Your public profile will be active a few minutes after making this change.

When Profiles launched on 14 September 2023, existing research staff and doctoral researchers had their public profiles activated automatically by default. Other RPS users, including staff on teaching contracts, and research assistants, need to enable their public profile in RPS. This approach was taken because most staff of these types did not populate their IRIS profiles (UCL’s previous public profiles system), and because it is now very easy to make your profile public.

For information on how to populate your profile, see our Getting started with your public profile page. You can use the settings in RPS to hide selected information from your public profile, and public profiles can be deactivated/hidden at any time.

Why isn't my public profile showing?

If you are new to UCL, you need to activate your public profile first in RPS before it will show publicly. UCL Profiles is a public layer that sits on top of RPS. First, check you can log in to RPS. If not, see Why can't I log in to RPS, below. If you can log in to RPS, and you see a 'View my profile' link on your homepage (on the right, beneath your name), then your profile is available to the public. Follow the link to see your public profile. If you cannot see this link, click on 'Edit my profile'. Your profile privacy level is indicated at the top of the RPS Edit Profile page. If the status is 'Internal', then your profile is not available to the public. Change this to 'Public'. After a couple of minutes, click on 'View my public profile' to verify that your public profile is now live. 

Why can't I log in to RPS?

All UCL staff except those designated 'Visitor (Associate Staff)' should have an RPS account by default: log in with your usual UCL credentials. If you cannot log in to RPS, follow the usual UCL ISD password advice or request assistance by raising a service request. Visiting staff can request access to RPS by submitting a service request: choose 'Access to UCL Profiles' > 'my public profile is unavailable'.  

How are the fields in Profiles populated? What data comes from HR?

For a full list of where the fields in Profiles come from and what data can be edited, see the table in our summary of data fields in RPS Edit Profile.

How do I export my CV from RPS for professorial appraisal?

For the purposes of UCL's professorial appraisal review process, an 'Appraisal CV' in RPS contains details of your research grants (from Worktribe), research degree supervision (from Portico) and publications. To export this CV, go to RPS > 'Edit my profile' > 'CV and Reports' (top right). Select 'Appraisal CV' > 'Next'. Enter start and end dates if you want to export only data from a certain period; leave the dates blank if you want to return all data. Choose a document format (the MyAppraisal user guides recommend Word for ease of use) and click 'Run'. This export will include publications, grants and research degree supervision.

If you see a message that 'The reporting database is not ready', you can still export your CV by clicking 'Render now', but any very recent changes you have made in RPS may not be included in it. For any other issues with exporting your CV, raise a service request.

For queries about professorial appraisal review, see the MyAppraisal support guides and FAQs. For queries about data in RPS, see:

Are UCL department webpages in Drupal being populated with Profiles data?

Department people pages in Drupal continue to include key person data (department, appointment, title, contact details and photograph), but other information has been replaced with links to the user’s profile in the new system. This gives users the opportunity to take advantage of the additional functionality in Profiles. UCL’s Digital Experience Team has provided information about these changes, as well as an indication of future plans for Profiles data. The following information may be helpful for Drupal site owners:

  • The standard Drupal people page content type allows departments to set up people pages that include some basic information and a link to the person's full profile in Profiles. Alternatively, departments can create a single people page with links to individual profiles.
  • It is no longer possible to show a department's publications in Drupal. In future, it will be possible to present department and group information in Profiles itself.
  • Where a user makes their UCL email address internal, it will be hidden from their public profile, but not from a standard department 'person' page in Drupal. For options to address this in Drupal, see How do I hide my profile, or certain data fields populating it?
  • For assistance with Drupal, contact web-support@ucl.ac.uk.

How are communications about Profiles cascaded?

Regular Profiles completeness reports, and information about Profiles developments, are sent to faculties and departments. Updates and announcements about significant service developments are made in The Week@UCL. Academic and Professional Services representatives on the Profiles User & Development Group assist with sharing information about Profiles in their departments and faculties.  

Are Profiles training materials and workshops available?

Profiles training and support materials are available (see our Getting Started page). These highlight key actions that you need to take, including uploading a profile photo, reviewing data migrated from UCL's previous profiles system, IRIS, and selecting appropriate disciplinary and other labels. If you would like to arrange an online training session for your department or faculty, please contact Profiles Support. 

How can I get permission to edit a group of users’ profiles?

Department and faculty staff requiring permission to edit profile information for all users in a department are invited to contact Profiles Support to request delegate status for the relevant group. Staff with existing permission to edit publication records automatically have access to edit all Profiles data. 

How do I grant someone else permission to edit my data in RPS/Profiles?

To give another RPS user permission to impersonate you and make updates on your behalf, login to RPS and go to Settings > Manage Delegates. 

Why are free text searches giving odd results?

There is currently no exact phrase seaching in UCL Profiles: searching is based on keywords in free text and other sections of Profiles. Since Profiles was launched, the supplier has improved their search algorithm by adjusting the data included in the search process, and the structure and weighting of queries. When UCL implements a newer version of Profiles, users will see fewer results as they add terms and begin to pinpoint their search. The results will be more clearly relevant to the terms being searched, particularly where the search is for multiple terms or multi-word terms.

Data from IRIS (UCL's previous public profiles service)

What IRIS data was migrated to Profiles?

All information in your IRIS ‘Profile’ tab, including Biography, Research Summary, Teaching Summary, Appointments and contact details, and your IRIS Achievements, was migrated to RPS. 

Photos have not been migrated because many of them were low quality and out of date. Profiles provides functionality to upload higher resolution photos. 

Following detailed analysis and with the agreement of a range of academic stakeholders, the decision was taken not to transfer a small number of IRIS data types that contained out of date and badly organised information: Research Groups, Research Themes and Research Activities. Profiles offers new ways of presenting this data, and work will be carried out after launch to develop them. Data that was not transferred is available for departments and researchers to re-use: contact Profiles Support for details. 

Data in RPS is made public in Profiles, the public layer of RPS. You can hide information from public view if you wish. 

How was my IRIS profile data - Biography, Research Summary, Teaching Summary, Appointments and contact details - migrated to Profiles? Do I need to edit it in RPS? 

Detailed work on data mapping was undertaken for all data being migrated to Profiles. We mapped IRIS data into RPS categories as closely as possible, in order to minimise work for users. However, you may wish to tidy some of the data in RPS that has been brought over from IRIS:

  • It was not possible to migrate IRIS formatting such as headings, URLs, italics and bold text, because Profiles does not currently accommodate formatting in free text fields. This functionality has been added to a new version of Profiles to which UCL will upgrade in due course. In the meantime, you may want to edit your Biography, Research Interests and Teaching Interests with this in mind. Line and paragraph spacing may also need adjusting in these sections. 
  • Previous UCL positions that were recorded in IRIS appear in the Academic appointments section: you may wish to remove them from here and add them to the UCL appointments section. 
  • It was not possible to migrate blank start/end dates to the Academic appointments section of Profiles. Blank start/end dates in IRIS were replaced with 1900-01-01 or 2100-01-01. Please remove and replace these with the correct dates, as appropriate. If you leave an end date blank, the appointment will display in Profiles as "-present', indicating that it is still current.
  • Twitter and LinkedIn URLs, and mailing addresses, were migrated and made public in Profiles; other web addresses and phone numbers were migrated as private. You may wish to check these details and adjust the privacy status (public to private or vice versa). 

How were my IRIS Achievements been migrated to Profiles? Do I need to edit them in RPS?

In a complex analysis and mapping exercise, IRIS Achievements were migrated to RPS Professional Activities (which display on the Profiles Expertise and Experience page). The large number of detailed IRIS Achievements types caused confusion for users, and types were populated inconsistently. After consultation with relevant stakeholders, a set of broad professional activity types was adopted. These types serve as headings only. New Profiles functionality - particularly Availability and Fields of Research tags - helps Profiles users find you and your activities.

In a small number of cases, where Achivements categories were used very haphazardly (including an 'Other' category), achievements were not migrated. Data that was not transferred is available for departments and researchers to re-use: contact Profiles Support for details.

Where an IRIS achievement type was populated with mismatching entries by different researchers, some individual professional activities may beneft from being given a different Profiles Professional Activity type. To do this, navigate to the activity in RPS, click the pencil icon and select your chosen alternative. Note that only the title of the activity, organisation (or equivalent) and start/end dates will appear publicly in Profiles.

Screenshot of UCL Profiles edit activity type screen

Are old IRIS URLs redirecting automatically to Profiles?

Yes, IRIS profile URLs redirect to the equivalent new academic profile pages in the new system. Please use your new Profiles URL.

Why is my current UCL appointment listed twice on my Profiles About page?

Your current UCL appointment (or appointments) is fed from HR to the 'University College London Appointments' section of your Profiles About page (RPS Edit Profile > 'UCL appointments') and to your left key details tile. This is the same appointment that was listed at the top of your IRIS page (which was also fed by HR data).

Appointments that you added to your Appointments table in IRIS were brought into the 'Academic Positions' section of your Profiles About page (RPS Edit Profile > 'Academic appointments'). If you added your current appointment to that table in IRIS, it will show in both the 'University College London Appointments' and 'Academic Positions' sections of your UCL Profiles About page. If this is the case, remove the duplicate entry from RPS Edit Profile > 'Academic appointments'.

Updating Profiles

How do I change my title/name on Profiles?

To change your title, contact hr-services@ucl.ac.uk. 

You can set a preferred name in your HR record, which changes how your name appears in RPS/Profiles and other UCL systems (e.g. email and UCL Directory). To do so:  

Inside UCL

Log in to Inside UCL > My details > add or update 'Preferred first name'/ 'preferred last name'.

MyHR

If you cannot access Inside UCL, the same changes can be made using MyHR:

MyHR > Menu > UCL Employee Self Service > My Personal Information > Personal Information > Basic details: Update > Correct or complete current details > Next > 'Preferred forename' / 'Preferred surname'. 

After setting your preferred name

If you have previously set a preferred name directly in the UCL Directory, you should check that it matches what you have entered above.

Updates will show automatically on Profiles within a few days. 

How do I update my department/current appointment on Profiles?

The department/current appointment information in your left key details tile in Profiles is populated from UCL HR data. Your appointment also appears in the 'University College London Appointments' section of your Profiles About page. To request changes:

  1. Contact hr-services@ucl.ac.uk (the left key details tile on Profiles will update automatically within a few days), and 
  2. Submit a service request to update the 'University College London Appointments' section, since this cannot currently be updated automatically. In the service request form, choose 'My details in UCL Profiles' > 'How do I update my department/current appointment on Profiles?' and follow the instructions provided. The process will be streamlined in future, and this step will not be necessary.

Note that the 'University College London Appointments' section will not appear in RPS if no appointment has been recorded in it. If your profile does not have a 'University College London Appointments' section, submit a service request for it to be populated. This section only contains your current UCL appointment. See How do I add previous UCL and other appointments in RPS/Profiles? 

How do I change my qualifications/degrees information on Profiles? 

When Profiles was launched, RPS was populated with degree information from MyHR in a one-off import. If you had not populated your degree information in MyHR, or you joined UCL since Profiles was launched (14 September 2023), you will need to add your degrees to MyHR, then raise a Profiles service request to arrange for the information to be added to RPS. This is to ensure that HR records contain the same information as RPS/Profiles. The Degrees section in your RPS 'Edit Profile' page will only appear once it has been populated. 

  1. Log in to MyHR and select UCL Employee Self Service > My Personal Information > Education and Qualifications. For each degree, enter these required fields for RPS/Profiles:
    type of qualification (mandatory in MyHR);
    title;
    actual completion date;
    qualification letters;
    awarding/examining body.
  2. Submit a Profiles service request. Choose 'My details in UCL Profiles' > 'How do I change my qualifications/degrees info on Profiles?' and follow the instructions provided.

The process of adding degree information to RPS/Profiles will be streamlined in future. 

How do I add previous UCL and other appointments to RPS/Profiles?

If your UCL appointment has not always been the same, for example because you have been promoted, your appointment has otherwise changed (eg to an honorary one), or your department name has changed, these previous UCL appointments will not appear in the 'University College London Appointments' box in Profiles. You can add them to the Academic Positions section of your Profiles About page. To do so, log in to RPS, click on 'Edit my profile' and scroll down to 'Academic appointments'. Enter the appointments; click 'Save' after adding each one. They will appear beneath the 'University College London Appointments' box in your Profiles About page, in a box labelled 'Academic Positions'. You can also add previous appointments, visiting appointments and other appointments to this box. 

How do I adjust grants and research degree supervision in my RPS record?

Grants and research degree supervision records were imported to RPS from Worktribe and Portico respectively, as a one-off data load, so that they could be included in an 'Appraisal CV' in RPS for the purposes of UCL's professorial appraisal review process. Grants appear in the Grants section of RPS, and research degree supervision in Teaching Activities. Grants were added to PIs' RPS records only; research degree supervision was added to all supervisors' RPS records. However, grants and research degree supervision data in RPS should only be used by professorial staff, for professorial appraisal, at present.

Grants and research degree supervision are included in the 'Appraisal CV' that professorial staff can export from RPS and use to complete their appraisal documentation. The data is locked in RPS, but professorial staff can adjust it in the CV export. Any changes to grants and research supervision activities made in Worktribe and Portico respectively will not appear in RPS. The RPS/Profiles team will be working on enhancing and improving this data in RPS in future, with help from colleagues in other teams including Student & Registry Services. For questions about professorial appraisal, see the MyAppraisal support guides and FAQs. For information about the 'Appraisal CV', see How do I export my CV from RPS for professorial appraisal?

Grants and supervision data do not currently appear in Profiles. The RPS/Profiles team is engaging with researchers to determine how best to display this data in Profiles. If you would like to comment on this, please contact RPS/Profiles support. If you wish to record research degree supervision in Profiles at the moment, we suggest that you either use the free-text Research Interests section, or the 'Office held' Professional Activity type.

How do I hide my profile, or certain data fields populating it?

See this guide to privacy settings in UCL Profiles. 

External links in publications lists

Some publications in Profiles' publications pages feature links to external sites. These external links direct users to publishers' websites, and to two widely-used external sources of metrics, Dimensions (labelled Citations in Profiles) and Altmetric. Guidance on UCL's responsible approach to metrics is available on UCL's Bibliometrics webpages. Some users have asked for the ability to hide these external links from their publications lists. This is not currently possible, but the RPS/Profiles team has raised it with the supplier of RPS/Profiles as a possible future feature.

Hiding your UCL email address

Note that making your UCL email address internal will hide it from your public profile, but not from a standard department 'person' page in Drupal. Your department Drupal website editor can configure department pages differently in order to avoid showing your UCL email address on them.

Options available for Drupal department page configurations include:

Drupal website editors should contact web-support@ucl.ac.uk for assistance with these alternatives to using the standard person profile content type in Drupal.

How do I add an Organisation/Institution to a professional or teaching activity?

When adding a professional or teaching activity (e.g. fellowship), you may need to populate an Organisation/Institution field. This field includes a form for entering the organisation name. Start typing into the box labelled 'Organisation' which appears beneath the box at the top of the organisation field with the dotted outline (see image below). You will be offered organisations to select as you type: for example 'University College London, London (UCL)' is offered when you start typing 'University College L'. You are not restricted to prepopulated suggestions, so you can type a name that is not in the list. Note that you will not be able to save without clicking '+ Add' after making your selection or filling in the organisation details.

Screenshot showing the populating of organisation field in RPS

How do I suggest a new Fields of Research or Availability label?

Defined filter label schemes (e.g. Fields of Research and Availability) are used for dynamic searching and filtering in Profiles. They allow users to find people with the same label in their profile. In contrast, keywords of any sort can be added to the Bio, Research Interests and Teaching Interests free-text sections of Profiles.

New filter labels can be added to the existing schemes, but they must have the potential to be used in a sufficiently large number of UCL profiles to make them helpful as a filter. To request additions or changes to any of the filter label schemes currently in Profiles, please send the information below to RPS/Profiles Support. The information that you provide will be used to make a recommendation to the Profiles User & Development Group and RIGE Senior Leadership Committee, which review requests for new filter labels on a regular basis.

  1. Please confirm that you have reviewed the existing labels in the scheme. For Availability, see RPS > Edit my Profile > Availability > 'Add labels' or 'Manage labels'. For Fields of Research, see the full scheme in the Fields of Research section of our Getting started with your public profile page.
  2. Are you requesting a new filter label (or labels), a change to an existing one or an entirely new filter label scheme?
  3. If you are requesting a change/addition to the Fields of Research filter label scheme, in which four-digit subject area of the existing scheme should the new label (or labels) appear? You will find the full scheme in the Fields of Research section of our Getting started with your public profile page.
  4. What change/new label (or labels) are you requesting?
  5. Why do you feel that this change/addition is required? How is the new label (or labels) different from the filter labels currently available? Does the new label (or labels) apply to specific research groups at UCL?
  6. If possible, please estimate how many UCL users might apply the new filter label (or labels) to their profiles. This information is useful because any new label needs to have the potential to be sufficiently well-used to be helpful as a filter. As an alternative, it is already possible to add very granular keywords to the free-text fields of Profiles.
  7. Do you have any examples of the new label (or labels) being used in external sources (e.g. bibliographic databases or other taxonomies)?
  8. Is this request supported by other UCL staff/doctoral researchers/HoDs? If so, please give details.

 How do I make changes/corrections to my publications list?

The Publications page in UCL Profiles displays works that you have claimed in RPS, except any that you have opted to make private. If there are errors on your publications page in Profiles, you should update your publications in RPS using the available guides. You can contact Profiles Support for further assistance, or if you find that a record is locked in RPS and you are unable to make changes to it. 

How do I highlight publications in my public profile?

On your RPS home page, click on Publications to see your list of publications. You will see a 'heart' icon at the top right of each publication in this list. Click to activate the 'heart' icon and make a publication a favourite. By default, favourites are pinned to the top of your publications list in Profiles. 

What is displayed on Profiles if I don't complete a field in RPS?

Fields will not show in your public profile at all if they are not populated in RPS, and pages will not show if not relevant data is entered in RPS. For example, the Teaching page will not show if Teaching Summary is left blank in RPS and no Teaching activities are recorded.

Why are the names of headings/fields different in RPS and Profiles?

Fields and headings are sometimes presented differently in RPS and Profiles. For example, 'Professional Activities' (in RPS) appear under the heading 'Activities & Roles' on the Expertise & Experience page (in Profiles). The names of pages and headings in Profiles were agreed in consultation with the Profiles User & Development Group, which includes representatives from all faculties, Vice-Deans (Research), and other UCL stakeholders, and have been chosen for clarity in communicating UCL activities to a wide and sometimes non-specialist external audience. RPS has other dependencies that prevent sections from being renamed. Our table of fields provides an overview of how fields are named and presented in RPS and Profiles. 

Can I add links/italics/bold to text on Profiles?

The supplier has added this functionality to a future version of Profiles that UCL will be implementing in due course. In the meantime, you can add links to the left key details tile in Profiles. These are edited in the 'Web addreses and social media' section of your Edit Profile page in RPS.

How do I add/update my ORCID?

See Adding and configuring ORCID in RPS. Once you have added your ORCID in RPS, it will display on your public profile page under your photo, in the left key details tile.

Are there plans for more filter label schemes?

The Profiles Support team is keen to receive feedback on existing and potential future filter label schemes. If you have any requests for additional new filter label schemes, please contact Profiles Support.