Frequently asked questions

UpYourResearch is a research workflow platform. It follows a project through nine stages — proposal, literature review, ethics approval, data collection, data analysis, manuscript, peer review, publication and research impact — with tasks, documents, approvals, comments and reports in one place.

Yes. The demo site (demo.upyourresearch.com) has two fictional colleges filled with sample projects so you can explore every role. Use the "Start your free trial" button to get access.

On the sign-in page choose "Forgot password?", enter your email and follow the link we send you. The link works once and expires after an hour by default. If no email arrives, check your spam folder or ask an administrator.

Click your name in the top bar to open your Profile. You can change your name and email there, and set a new password after entering your current one.

The Dashboard shows your record counts, upcoming and overdue tasks, and any approvals waiting for you. The sidebar is grouped by research phase: Plan, Execute, Share and Reporting.

The sidebar only shows what your role is allowed to use. A Viewer sees read-only pages, a Reviewer sees peer review, and administration appears only for admin roles. Ask an administrator if you need more access.

Plan: research proposal, literature review, ethics approval. Execute: data collection, data analysis, manuscript writing. Share: peer review, publication, research impact. Every stage record belongs to a research proposal.

Research proposal: the project itself — title, objectives, research area, supervisor, principal investigator, dates and funding. Literature review: the sources you have read, added by hand or imported from a reference manager. Ethics approval: the ethics (IRB) application, its status (pending, approved or rejected), the submitted and approved dates, and the approval letter.

Data collection: how and when data was gathered, with the data file. Data analysis: the method, the dataset and the output file. Manuscript writing: the paper itself, its status (draft, submitted, under review, accepted, published), the file and the credited authors in order.

Peer review: each reviewer's comments and decision on a manuscript. Publication: the journal, DOI, date, volume, issue and pages. Research impact: citations, downloads and other measures of reach, recorded against a publication.

Go to Plan → Research Proposals and choose "New". Add the title, objectives, research area, supervisor, dates and funding. Every later stage (literature, ethics, data, manuscript and so on) is then added against that proposal.

Progress counts the stages that are really finished: for example ethics must be approved, data collection must have a collected date, and the manuscript must be accepted or published. Open a proposal to see a tick for each completed stage and the percentage.

Anyone in your college with access to a stage can read its projects, but only the project team — the creator, the supervisor and the collaborators — can edit or delete them. Administrators can edit everything in their scope.

Open the research proposal and choose "Team". Pick a person and describe their role on the project, for example Co-Investigator or Data Analyst. They are notified when added.

On Literature Review choose "Import" and upload a RIS or BibTeX file exported from any reference manager (EndNote exports RIS). Zotero and Mendeley can also be connected for live sync under Execute → Integrations.

Use Plan → Tasks & Deadlines. Each task belongs to a proposal, has a due date, an assignee and a status, and can be flagged as a milestone. Overdue tasks are marked in red, and the dashboard lists anything due in the next seven days.

On any stage record choose "Request approval". The project's supervisor is notified and can approve or reject it with a note; the requester is notified of the decision. Only one request can be pending on a record at a time.

The bell in the top bar shows your notifications: being assigned a task, being added to a team, being mentioned in a comment, and approval requests or decisions. Tick a person under "Notify" when you comment to alert them.

Peer reviews are recorded against a manuscript, either by a registered reviewer or as an external reviewer's name. A reviewer can open a review on any manuscript in their college and sees the manuscripts assigned to them.

Research documents only: PDF, Word (doc, docx), Excel (xls, xlsx), PowerPoint (ppt, pptx), OpenDocument (odt, ods, odp), RTF, CSV, TSV and plain text. ZIP files, images, programs and files containing macros or scripts are refused.

Open the record (a proposal, ethics approval, manuscript and so on) and use the Documents panel at the bottom: choose the file, give it a label and select Attach. It becomes version 1 of a new document. Execute → Documents lists every document you can open, with search and a filter by stage.

Every upload is checked three ways: its extension, its real content type and its internal structure. A renamed file, a document with macros, a PDF with embedded JavaScript, or a file over the size limit is refused. Save it as a plain PDF or Office file and try again.

No. Documents keep their full version history. Upload a new version from the document's history page; any earlier version can be downloaded or restored at any time.

Documents are limited to the project team: the creator, the supervisor, collaborators, and a reviewer assigned to that manuscript. Administrators can see documents within their scope.

Reporting → Reports shows the pipeline by stage, proposals and tasks by status, peer review decisions, publications over time, funding, citations and downloads. "Interactive trends" adds month-by-month charts, and the figures can be exported to CSV.

Yes. Every stage list and the Tasks list has an "Export CSV" button, and the Reports page exports all of its figures in one CSV file, which opens in Excel.

Yes. Each college runs on its own installation and database. Where one installation hosts several colleges, every page, list, report and download is limited to your own college.

Yes. The Activity feed shows who did what, and the Audit log (for administrators) records the exact before-and-after value of every changed field.

Yes. Each college gets its own site with its own name, logo, colours, cover banner, about text and contact details, all set from Admin → Branding without any coding.

Ask Robo (beta) answers from your own data and from this help: your tasks and deadlines, approvals waiting for you, your proposals and their progress, a project's supervisor, team, status or next stage, counts of records, reports figures, where to find a menu item, and how-to questions from the user guide and these FAQs. It only shows what you could already see in the app.

Mention the project's title or a distinctive word from it, for example "what is the status of the radiology project?" or "who supervises \"Impact of Remote Work\"?". Putting the title in quotes gives the most exact match.

Use the contact details in the "Ready to up your research?" section on the home page, or the free-trial button to get started.