Managing Projects

Adding, analyzing, sharing, and publishing projects are the foundation of how most people use the Research Workspace (RW). In order to take full advantage of the RW’s features (as well as make the best use of your time), it’s best to approach the creation and management of projects in the RW in an organized way.

For more information on organizing and managing projects, please see Axiom Data Science’s Best Practices for Data Management. For more on how to manage projects within the RW, see below.

Project List

The project list shows entries for projects on which you have a role: owner, contributor, or viewer. Projects are analogous to a file-storage directory but are more flexible and can hold their own metadata. The most common RW projects contain a collection of files that can all be described with similar data collection methods. Projects can also be used to share information that doesn’t require metadata, such as administration or outreach materials.

Latest Activity

The latest activity feed on the right hand side of the window lists the latest actions made to projects, campaigns, or organizations by you or your collaborators. Click on the links provided in the feed to go directly to the files that were changed.

Tip

The date next to each project name shows the latest activity. This allows you to easily track progress across your projects.

Create a New Project

To create a new project, follow this steps:

  1. Click the green icon create_new_icon at the top left of your project list.
  2. Fill in the name of your project and click Save.
  3. Edit your project settings as needed.

Tip

The project name should be a descriptive title to convey the project’s research theme, location, and the data contained within the project container. Refer to Data Management Best Practices for more information about project naming.

Clone a Project

To create a new project based on an existing project, follow these steps:

  1. From the project list, hover over the project listing for the existing project with the mouse pointer.
  2. Click on the 3 gray dots on the right-hand side of the project listing.
  3. Select Clone from the dropdown menu that appears.
  4. A pop-up window will confirm that the project is being cloned.

Note

If you are cloning a project within a campaign or organization that you own, the cloned project will appear in that campaign or organization. If you are cloning a project you don’t own, the cloned project will appear in your My Projects list, unassociated with any campaign or organization.

Edit Project Settings

To edit the project name and share settings for your project, you must be the project owner:

  1. Click on a project.
  2. Select the Settings menu item.
  3. Edit the name of the project, manage project members or their roles, or the campaigns or organizations to which your project belongs.

Tip

You can also get to a project’s settings by selecting the member icon in the upper right of a project entry.

Manage Project Members

As described in the table below, there are three different types of project members:

  • owner_icon Owners of the project can add or remove project members as well as reassign member roles.
  • pencil_icon Contributors can add content to a project, including files and metadata, but don’t have control of project permissions.
  • view_icon Viewers can view the project files and metadata, but cannot contribute to the project.

To add people to a project you own, follow these steps:

  1. Click on the project listing in project view.
  2. Select Settings near the top of the page, just under the project title.
  3. Use the Find a person dialog to search for existing RW members.
  4. Assign them a member role to add them to the project.

If the name of the person does not appear in the search box, they are likely not a member of the Workspace. Refer to Inviting a New Member to the Workspace for information on adding a new user to the Workspace.

Note

Added members will then receive an invite notification. They will be able to view the project immediately.

To remove people from a project you own, use the rightmost icon next to their name in the list of members.

Manage Member Roles

Each member of a project is assigned a role that indicates how they can interact with the project: owner, contributor, or viewer. Member roles can be viewed or reassigned by project owners on the Project Settings page.

Member can: Owner Contributor Viewer
See the project in their project list ✓ ✓ ✓
See the project’s contents ✓ ✓ ✓
Add or remove files ✓ ✓  
Edit project or file metadata ✓ ✓  
Add or remove project members ✓    
Assign or change member roles ✓    
Add a project to campaigns or organizations ✓    
Delete the project and all its contents ✓    

Note

When viewing a campaign, you can see your member status in the top right corner of the window, just under your name.

Inviting a New Workspace User to a Project

New users can be added to the Workspace from any project, campaign, or organization. The instructions below describe how to invite a new member to a project who is not already a Workspace user. You can invite a new Workspace User from any project of which you are an owner.

To add a new member to the Workspace, follow these steps and review the video below:

  1. From within the project view, select Settings near the top of the page, just under the project title.
  2. First, check to ensure the person is not already an RW member. Use the Find a person dialog to search for existing RW members. If their name does not appear, then they are not a current RW member.
  3. To add a new member, click the + to the right of the “Find a person” search box.
  4. In the “Add Members” page click the envelope icon envelope_icon in the upper right.
  5. Enter the email address for the new member you want to invite. More than one member can be invited by entering additional email addresses each on a new line.
  6. You can preview the invite email that will be sent by clicking Preview invitation.
  7. Click Send.

Note

Once you have invited a new member, that person must create a Workspace account to join the project. The account should be created using the same email address used for the invitation, otherwise they will not have access to the project.

add_user_campaign_gif

Add a Project to a Campaign

Campaigns refer to a group of RW projects that are related by a common goal. For example, a research campaign might be a five-year multi-million dollar effort to study fish and stressors in the Gulf of Alaska. The campaign is a specific, funded effort over a defined time frame, but it encompasses many different projects, all of which have different data collection methods.

In the RW, if you add your project to a research campaign you can choose to:

  • Add as Contributor, which gives everyone in the campaign the permissions of a contributor (i.e., edit rights).
  • Add as Viewer, which gives everyone in the campaign the permissions of a viewer (i.e., read-only).

To add a project to a campaign, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to the “My Project” view by clicking the feed icon on the left hand side of the page and selecting My Projects.
  2. Select the project you want to add.
  3. Within the project view, select Settings.
  4. Under Campaigns type the name of the campaign in the search bar.
  5. Select the desired role and click Close.

Note

You can verify that the project was added to the campaign by navigating to the feed icon and selecting the campaign to view it.

Add a Project to an Organization

Organizations are entities such as funding agencies, universities, research labs, etc., that are responsible in some way for the projects results. Each RW organization has owners (typically program administrators, outreach managers, data managers, etc.), and adding the organization gives organization owners the permissions of a contributor (i.e., edit rights).

Why add an organization to your project? This drop-downs a small group of verified people associated with research program administration the ability to see your project, generate standardized project-wide metadata for you, and post files such as report templates. It’s a narrowly defined way for the program manager to interact with you.

Edit Your Project Metadata

Project metadata is a like a profile that provides a broad overview for an entire project and covers general elements such as the project abstract, purpose, dates, contacts, keywords, and geographic locations. It is edited just like a metadata record. Your project profile can contain more specific information as well, as long as it applies to every file in the project. More granular information about the data resources and techniques is included within the folder metadata and file metadata.

To edit your project metadata, follow these steps:

  1. From the project view, click on your project listing.
  2. Click on the white down arrow down_arrow_icon next to Settings.
  3. Select View project metadata from the dropdown list.
  4. The metadata editor will launch, displaying your project metadata.

Note

Refer to the metadata editor documentation for more information.

Delete a Project

If you are the owner of a project and want to remove it from the RW, there are 2 ways to delete a project:

From within the project

  1. Click on the white down arrow down_arrow_icon next to Settings.
  2. Select Delete project from the dropdown list.
  3. Confirm that you want to delete the project by selecting Delete in the popup window that appears.

From the project list

  1. Hover over the project listing with the mouse cursor.
  2. Left-click on the three dots at the right-hand side of the listing.
  3. Select Delete from the dropdown menu that appears.
  4. Confirm that you want to delete the project by selecting Delete in the popup window that appears.

Warning

Deleting a project will remove the project as well as all its files and any metadata. There is no going back, so be sure that you want to take this action!