Find out the different ways you can search KAR for records for your Division or School, export the results and be notified about new entries. The options, instructions and some important explanations are set out below.
Pre-set report that you can configure
There is a pre-set report in KAR called Outputs in KAR by Division and Date. This has been designed so that only the most relevant fields are displayed in the exported file. The fields have been given more meaningful labels and duplicate lines have been removed. This report is available to anyone who logs into KAR.
Access the report by logging in to KAR using your University of Kent username and password. Select Reports from the menu on the top-right of the page. Select Outputs in KAR by Division and Date
You can configure the report to:
- return entries for a Division, or School/s within a Division that you select
- return entries that were published within the start and end dates you select
- include or exclude theses, or show only theses
- export the results in Excel or CSV which you can then manipulate according to your needs
How to use the report
This option is most useful for producing regular clean data sheet reports that can be routinely re-run and further manipulated according to need.
To retrieve new, recently added items, this report could be run periodically with the end date adjusted to retrieve entries added to KAR since the date the previous report was run. Alternatively, once a “master” report had been produced a separate report could be run periodically with a shorter range of start and end dates that cover the period since the last report was run. These will pick up records of works that have already been reported on in the event of a new date being added.
Explanation of Dates that it will use to search
KAR uses a hierarchy of dates based on events in the publishing lifecycle. When these are entered into a record the date of the event highest in this hierarchy acts as the primary date. This is the date that is displayed on abstract/landing page for a KAR record and on the web profile page. It is this primary date that the report uses to retrieve records. The date events in hierarchical order are:
- Submitted – not usually used as we ask for records to be created on KAR after a work is accepted. This date is lowest in the hierarchy.
- Accepted – when a work is ‘in press’ it will only have an accepted date. This is the date that KAR and the report will use for that record.
- Published online – a work that is published online early or only published online will have this date completed as well as the accepted date. When present this Published Online date will take precedence over the Accepted Date and will be the primary date used by KAR and the report. This date is also used by Research England and the REF as the publication date as it is usually the date the work was first available to the public.
- Published – this date is used when a publisher produces a print copy of a journal or assigns a work to a specific volume and issue. This may be after it has been available to read and download online. This is usually after the Published Online date and where it is present in the record it will take precedence and act as the primary date used by KAR and the report – it is highest in the hierarchy.
A record in KAR may possess all four of these dates, only one, or a combination. All dates that are present in a KAR record are displayed in the report results file. The primary date that takes precedence is shown in bold type in the report.
Publication status
The report returns records in KAR that possess the publication status:
- Published
- In press
- Submitted
- Unpublished
Works that are not subject to the publication lifecycle, use these terms for equivalent date events.
Advanced Search and Saved Search
As an alternative to the pre-set report, you can use the Advanced Search within KAR, set your criteria and then Save the search so that you can re-visit and run again. This also allows you to set up an alert to be emailed when new entries are added to KAR that meet your search criteria. See the KAR Searching and exporting user guide for specific instructions.
As well as the alert, this option is useful for producing a visually appealing output in HTML Citation format that can be copied and pasted into Word documents and reports. It provides a link back to the actual item in KAR.
This option is less useful for producing a CSV data sheet for further manipulation because
- it displays multiple lines for entries with more than one author etc
- it contains all the fields in KAR, some of which may not be relevant
- the field labels may require further interpretation
Open Research Glossary
See our Open Research Glossary for further explanation of terms