Website Structure and Terminology

User

A user is an individual accessing and utilizing mapMECFS to explore, analyze, and gain insights from various datasets for research purposes.

Each user account has a defined account role. These roles are:

Administrator

  • Full access rights
  • Can manage users
  • Organizational oversight

Editor

  • Create and edit content
  • Publish drafts
  • Cannot manage roles

Member

  • Read-only access
  • Download reports
  • No editing permissions

Organization

An organization is a set of users who belong to the same institution, research center, or individual research lab. By default, new users are added to the mapMECFS Community Organization as Members. This allows them to browse any publicly available datasets on the site. If a user wishes to upload their own data, they must submit a Submitter Agreement and will be added to their own Organization or another existing Organization. Users must be associated with an Organization to upload datasets.

Dataset

A dataset is a collection of resources (such as data files, phenotype files, result files, supporting files, or website links) with a description and study-level metadata. A dataset will generally contain one data file, one phenotype file, and an unlimited number of supporting files. During upload, users must select either public or private visibility. Public datasets are available to all mapMECFS site users. Private datasets are only available to users in your Organization.

By default, all uploaded datasets will be "private" (only viewable to the uploader and other users registered with the same organization as the uploader). For more information on how to release a dataset public, reference the How to Share Data section of this manual.

Group

A group is a collection of datasets that are all related to a common study, cohort, experiment, or publication. For example, a group designation that connects a collection of datasets containing experimental results from multiple assays that were all run on samples derived from the same set of study participants. Datasets in a group may originate from different Organizations or the same Organization.

Note: Public and private visibility of the data still applies when a dataset is part of a group.