Newsletters
The LUDOK team uses the newsletter feature in SciPaMaTo to prepare the periodic newsletter (every second month). The workflow is roughly as follows:
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First, they create a new newsletter issue in SciPaMaTo.
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Then the team uses the filtering and searching functionality in SciPaMaTo to find candidate studies that shall be presented in the newsletter.
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Every study that shall be in the newsletter receives two additional items of information: a free-text
headlineand atopicfrom a pre-compiled topic list (that can be extended on demand). You can use the topic to group related studies in the newsletter. Each can have a few topics grouping related studies. -
Studies can be included and excluded until the selection fits the purpose of the newsletter.
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The topics can be sorted freely per newsletter.
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Once the user finalizes the newsletter, its status progresses from 'In Progress' to 'Published'.
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The newsletter — including topics and headlines — are synchronized into SciPaMaTo-Public during the next Synchronization run.
Only one newsletter issue can be in status 'In Progress' at any time. Any studies that are added to a newsletter, is added to the issue that has the status 'In Progress' at that moment. There is a third status 'Cancelled' which is not open for modification and is also not synchronized to SciPaMaTo-Public. It should only be used for parking a newsletter if necessary.
Menu Newsletters → Newsletters
This screen shows a list of existing newsletter issues. You filter by issue and/or Publication Status.
You can sort by columns Issue, Issue Date, or Publication Status.
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Click the button
New Newsletterto create a new issue. This is only possible if there is no other newsletter issue in status 'In Progress'. The new newsletter will be in status 'In Progress' automatically. -
The newsletter
Issueis clickable. Doing so will display the respective newsletter issue. You may change its status and edit it if it is in status 'In Progress'. -
Click on Icon in Column
Sort Topicsto sort the topics -
Click on the waste bin icon in the column
Deleteto delete the newsletter from the database. This is only possible for the newsletter in status 'In Progress'. -
SciPaMaTo-Public offers links to both the newsletter issue (either the latest, or a particular issue), or also to the summary page of a cited study/paper.
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The process of writing the newsletter text or distributing it to all recipients is not part of the workflow that is incorporated into SciPaMaTo. |
In the case of LUDOK, the various links are:
The Newsletter List Page (Menu Newsletters → Newsletters) lets you create a new newsletter issue in status 'In Progress'.
To do that, click the button New Newsletter.
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You can only create a new newsletter if there is no other newsletter issue in status 'In Progress'. |
Add an issue — e.g. 2019/01 and issue date and save the newsletter.
Use the normal filtering and searching functionality from SciPaMaTo-Core to identify studies that shall be associated with the newsletter. Use the Newsletter Icon to trigger or cancel the association.
The Newsletter List Page (Menu Newsletters → Newsletters), you can click on the Issue (e.g. '2018/10')
to display or edit the respective newsletter.
The only fields of the newsletter are: Issue, Issue Date and Publication Status.
You are only able to modify Issue and Issue Date if the publication status is 'In Progress'.
The table lists any studies that are associated with the newsletter.
As you will see, newsletter topics (as well as headlines) are added to the paper/newsletter association from the Paper Entry page (create a new paper or click on the title of an existing paper from the Result Panel of the Paper Filter or Search Page).
The Newsletter List Page (Menu Newsletters → Newsletters) provides access to sorting already assigned topics.
To do so, click the sort icon of the respective newsletter.
You can change the sort order by dragging and dropping the topics as needed. Don’t forget to save after reordering.
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It is possible to modify the sort-order of already published newsletter issues. Hence, you do not need to reset a published newsletter back into status 'In Progress' to (re-) sort the topics. |
Perform normal searching in SciPaMaTo (Menu Papers → Search).
If a newsletter has previously been associated with the current — or an older — newsletter issue, you will see a closed envelope icon on the right-hand side. Hovering the mouse over the icon shows the newsletter issue as the title text.
If exactly one newsletter is in status 'In Progress', any newsletter that has not yet been associated with a newsletter, you can do so by clicking the + icon in the same column.
Any paper associated with the current newsletter (status 'In Progress') has an open envelope icon. Clicking that will remove the paper from the newsletter.
The same is possible from the Paper Filter Page (Menu Papers → Papers).
The Newsletter Topic and Headline are individual to each association between paper and newsletter. To maintain it, open the paper entry page (click the title of a paper identified in either:
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the Newsletter List page
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The result list of the paper filter page
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The result list of the paper search page
Selecting a newsletter topic that has not yet been associated with a particular newsletter issue will add it, also in the sort panel. Removing (the last instance) of a topic from a newsletter will remove it from the sort panel too.
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A paper-to-newsletter association will not be synchronized to SciPaMaTo-Public if the topic has not been selected (even if the status of the newsletter issue is 'Published⁾. |
Note that here, you can only select topics that have existed before. Hence, you cannot define new topics from within the paper entry page. To do that, see the next section.
Menu Newsletters → Newsletter Topics.
The Newsletter Topic List page lists all defined topics. The table aggregates the translation of each relevant language into one line.
Clicking the translation opens up the newsletter topic edit page. It lists one line for each language. You can modify the translations (don’t forget to save) or delete the topic with all translations.
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You can only delete a topic, if no newsletter issue still references it. If so, you first need to un-associate the topic from the affected newsletter issues before you can delete the topic. |
If your current newsletter in status In Progress is finished and ready for publishing,
you first need to set its status to Published.
Then you need to synchronize the data from SciPaMaTo-Core to SciPaMaTo-Public (see Reference Data Synchronization).
After successful synchronization, the New Study list page displays the newest newsletter on its main page - and moves the previous one into the archive list.
As en example, see New Studies in LUDOK.