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Getting Started with the Expert Gallery Suite

Category : For Administrators

Getting started is easy. There aren’t new programming languages to learn or scripts to run. Here’s what to expect in your first year and some suggested benchmarks to guide you.

New to Digital Commons as well? The Digital Commons setup steps are complementary, and your consultant for Digital Commons will be your point of contact for the Expert Gallery Suite as well. Your consultant will support you every step of the way, from determining which workflow best fits your institution to answering technical questions that may arise for you and other faculty.

For help at any point, contact your consultant at sw-support@bepress.com or, if you also have Digital Commons, dc-support@bepress.com.

1. Assemble the team

Institutions have different needs which will influence their unique goals and workflows. Your consultant will ask you to gather the stakeholders at your institution for a call to

  • Share their visions for the Expert Gallery Suite at your institution.
  • Confirm branding guidelines, media contacts.
  • Identify the areas of greatest need. (Their offices or departments will be your early adopters.)
  • Determine the resources that can help with content recruitment and communication.

Let’s make sure to keep them up to date on your progress afterward!

Tip: many of your faculty may already have SelectedWorks profiles and be excellent early adopters. Ask them for quotes for presentations.  

2. Set strategic goals

Is it a showcase for institutional expertise? Is it new faculty pages? Is it faculty assessment? Is it increased collaboration, media opportunities, and recruitment? It could be all of the above, but it’s wise to set goals strategically in your first year to help focus your efforts and ensure support in year two and beyond.

Consider the following outline and sample goals, and work with your consultant to customize them to your institution.

First Quarter

  • Set up per branding guidelines.
  • Meet with deans/directors of groups identified as early adopters.
  • Identify a department with great interest or need.
  • Build SelectedWorks profiles for your stakeholders and the first department.
  • Announce to appropriate groups.

Many institutions also have Digital Commons, a publishing and institutional repository platform which can be an excellent source of content for SelectedWorks profiles. Consult the stakeholders of the repository to help create efficient workflows for gathering and housing content suitably for both the repository and profiles.

Second Quarter

Mission accomplished with the first department?

  • Embed the departmental expert gallery on the departmental or other relevant website.
  • Begin presentations to remaining early adopters or to new departments to build a manageable pipeline.

What is your definition of mission accomplished? Not every work has to be present. Some institutions will focus on just the most recent works, the works that apply to a grant, or another criterion.

Tip: We have sample presentations and collateral you can use as templates for your own outreach efforts.

Third Quarter

  • Generate some buzz by sharing the embedded expert gallery and Impact Dashboard with stakeholders.
  • Complete additional departments.
  • Continue to build the pipeline.

Easy win: just cut and paste to embed a department’s expert gallery on the department’s website to reach a wider audience and draw more traffic to the faculty’s profiles. This is often a great time to incorporate SelectedWorks profile links into existing faculty directories/profile pages.

Fourth Quarter

Showtime!

  • If you haven’t already, share your institution’s new Expert Gallery with campus, media lists, and others who should know your institutional strengths.
  • Enlist help from Marketing and Communications, the Office of Research, and related groups at your institution to help you get the word out

While you’ve been establishing each department’s expert gallery, you’ve also been growing your institution-level Expert Gallery, too.  Use this resource to demonstrate the strengths of your institution and highlight individuals for media, collaboration, mentorship, and other opportunities.

3. Align the setup, and launch

With your goals in mind, the setup goes A-B-C:

A. Based on your branding guidelines, your consultant will create a design for your SelectedWorks profiles and Expert Gallery. To update your design or refine your other selections after setup, see the Settings of the Administrator Interface.

B. With your goals and resources identified, we will also help you to create an efficient, scalable workflow for your institution.

C. Your consultant will then provide you with a personalized training by phone, and then you are ready to begin building profiles!

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Expert Gallery Suite and Digital Commons Workflow