Version 9 (modified by solomonr, 3 years ago)

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User Guide

(these are currently in process...)

Some definitions

Project
a research project. A Project is constituted by a project team (a group of Users), Records, and Record Types. A Project can optionally have a parent Project, in which case we could call it a Subproject.
User
a user of the system. Can be a member of more than one Project.
Record
the basic unit of research. user-uploaded content. A Record belongs to one User and one Project. (Ultimately these will be able to be shared by Users and Projects, but the system isn't there yet.) The fields of a Record are determined by its Record Type.
Record Type
a name and a collection of fields. These are defined by users as a way of "structuring" a research project. For example: a "Soundwalk" might contain an audio file and a path on the map; a "Traffic Sign" might contain an image, a map point, a number representing the height, and a text field for a short description. A Record Type can be shared across multiple Projects (and hopefully some will be!)

Permissions

Certain details about permissions are still a little awkward and still being ironed out. But the basic idea probably won't change, which is:

Primary Investigator
The manager of a project, can create and edit the project, add and remove users from the project team, etc. Can also do all the below.
Collaborator
A collaborator on a project can create records within that project. A collaborator can also add subprojects, which they then have permission to edit and manage etc.
Contributor
A contributor on a project can create records within that project. Cannot edit the project details, create subprojects, edit roles, or anything else.

Each of these roles is per project -- which is to say, you could be a Collaborator on one project and a Contributor on another.

Getting started

  1. visit the URT user area:
     http://urt.rorys.webfactional.com/
  2. Browse around the map and any pre-existing records and projects
  3. Login by clicking "Login"
  4. This brings you to a kind of "user homepage" or "dashboard" type thing, which shows any projects you belong to and your "role" on each, also any records you have already created.

Creating a Sub-project

  1. From the user homepage screen, click on one of your assigned projects.
  2. Click "Create a new subproject".
  3. Enter a title and description. You can also add any tags you would like to describe the project (these will provide search and filter functionality soon).
  4. Select yourself and specify your role (this step is awkward and will be eliminated soon). But also, If this is a collaboration, select any other users and specify their roles.
  5. Select any record types you would like to be part of this project. If you need to create new record types, you can do that after saving your project. That process is described below.
  6. Click "submit".
  7. You should now be seeing the project overview page for this new project.

Creating a new Record Type

For now, unfortunately, this feature is still only possible from within the admin area. We are working on re-implementing this in the user area with a more streamlined and intuitively designed workflow.

  1. Visit the admin area:
     http://urt.rorys.webfactional.com/admin
    (The first time you do this you might want to change your password by clicking "Change password" in the upper-right corner. After which, click "Home" to go back.)
  2. Click "Record Types". This will show you all previously-defined record types. You can click around to see how other record types have been defined. And you can edit any previously defined types. But please don't change any that others have created! (This will be protected by permissions when this is in the user area.)
  3. Click "Add record type" (upper-right corner)
  4. Enter a name and description. A nice description would probably describe what this record type will be used to represent semantically, ie, beyond just the fields. For ex "Will store traffic signs in an urban environment with safety data related to each." Some may be fairly specific ("A video arcade including location and usage stats") but some may be fairly general ("A sound recording at some place and time").
  5. You can also select an icon for how this will be represented on the map.
  6. Now specify what fields. Click "Add another" to add more. Each field will have a name, a "type", an order (determining the order in which the fields are displayed) and a flag for whether or not this field is required. Current available types are:
    • text -- an open text field
    • numerical -- an open numeric field
    • citation (sadly this is not quite working yet, but this will provide an open standards compliant bibliographic citation)
    • geography point -- a single point on the map
    • geography path -- a route or group of lines on the map
    • geography area -- an area or region on the map
    • image -- an image file
    • sound -- a sound file
    • video -- a video file
  7. When you have full specified your record type click save.
  8. Now you can go back to  the site user area, click "Projects" (in the navigation bar), select your project, click "Edit", add your new record type to your project, and click "Submit".

Creating a Record

  1. From the URT user area:
     http://urt.rorys.webfactional.com/