nitrc:Future User Guide - NITRC Users

From NITRC Wiki

The NITRC community is made up of researchers, developers, academics, clinicians, administrators, scholars, and others interested in finding, developing, improving, and sharing functional and structural neuroimaging tools and resources. Depending upon the tool/resource, site users may fill different roles as they utilize different functions.

NITRC has been developed to have roles with predefined permissions. This allows users to easily move from acting in one role in one tool/resource (for example, acting as a team member) to another role in another tool/resource (for example, acting as a developer or a reference). Below is a general definition of the roles to help you understand your options:

Unregistered User: Everyone starts out as an unregistered user. Unregistered users, also called observers or visitors, may see the NITRC Home page and access NITRC Community functionality. An observer may visit public tools/resources, read postings by others in public forums, read wikis and news, browse documentation, and download tools/resources. For public tools/resources, observers may view the feature request and bug trackers to see what may be coming or what may be a problem in a tool/resource. If you are an observer or a registered user who has not logged in and you attempt to perform any function that requires registration, you will be taken to the Login page.

Registered User: Registered users may do everything unregistered users can do. In addition, registered users may receive e-mail about changes in tools/resources they are following, respond to surveys, rate and review public tools/resources, contribute to public discussion forums, and submit documentation to the NITRC Community that may be posted at the discretion of the NITRC Community administrator. A registered user may request to join tool/resource development teams, and as a tool/resource member or developer, he may be given additional capabilities by the tool/resource administrator. A registered user may also register his own tool/resource with NITRC, and once approved by a NITRC administrator, become a tool/resource administrator for that tool/resource.

Member: Members are registered users who have been granted permission to join a tool/resource development team. A registered user may request to join any public tool/resource by clicking the "Join the team" link on the Tool/Resource Summary page. The tool/resource administrator reviews the request and accepts or rejects it. The level at which the member is allowed to participate is set by the tool/resource administrator through the role the member is assigned. A member may be able to fully participate in discussion forums, submit documents, and edit wikis. A member may be able to suggest enhancements to tools/resources and report bugs through the trackers. A member may also be able to administer the document manager. There are several predefined roles in NITRC, but these roles can be modified by each tool/resource administrator, and new roles can be created. More information on editing and adding roles is in the Tool/Resource Admin section. Below is a description of the predefined roles with their default permissions.

Reference: References are members who have elected to be a point of contact for the tool/resource and have been assigned the role of "Reference" by the tool/resource administrator. If other users have questions about a tool/resource, they may contact anyone listed as a reference for that tool/resource. References have all the capabilities of a registered user, but no additional permissions as a tool/resource member.

Support Tech: Support Techs are members who are technical managers. Support Techs can create and edit trackers and have tracker items assigned to them. They can also approve document submissions and perform other document administration activities.

Doc Writer: Doc Writers are members who manage the document repository. Doc Writers can administer the document manager. They can add/edit document groups and approve pending documents or make other status changes to documents.

Junior Developer: Developers are members who have chosen to help build or improve the tool/resource and have been granted permission to do so by the tool/resource administrator. They may download and upload source code for a tool, offering changes and enhancements to the software. Developers may be assigned to work on specific tasks and tracker items in order to manage their development activities.

Senior Developer: Senior Developers have a greater authority over the system than Junior Developers. In addition to all the capabilities of a Junior Developer, Senior Developers can create software packages and upload files to the packages. These are the files that the NITRC community is able to download and use. Senior Developers also have permission to administer docs, forums, tracker, and tasks.

Tool/Resource Administrator: Tool/Resource Administrators are decision makers for the tools/resources hosted on the NITRC site. Using NITRC, they can manage their tools/resources more easily. They decide who may be a member or developer, which suggestions for enhancements will be accepted, which bugs will be assigned to which developers, which documents and files will be published for their tools/resources, and what news is presented for their tools/resources. They also have the ability to delegate these responsibilities, or limit them to certain users. A tool/resource may have only one tool/resource administrator or it may have many administrators. The person who first registers the tool/resource is the default administrator, and that tool/resource administrator may designate other tool/resource administrators.