nitrc:Getting Started: Listing Your Tool/Resource
From NITRC Wiki
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The person who registers a tool/resource with NITRC is automatically an administrator of that tool/resource. Administrators control the information available to the public for their tool/resource. There are several areas you should customize to make it easier for users to find your tool/resource in the NITRC Search and to promote your tool/resource better. After logging in, select your tool/resource from the "My Tools/Resources" section of the My NITRC personal page. Click the "Admin" link in your left side tool/resource menu, and use your administration pages to customize your tool/resource.
| Note: The NIH has requested that the NITRC team ensure that listed tools/resources have a certain level of compliance. With that in mind, we hope that every tool will have, at a bare minimum, proper classification in the Attribute List, file downloads (indicating release version and date), and documentation. We hope that as you realize benefits from administering your tool/resource on NITRC that it will broaden to include scientific posters, training materials, test data, and so on. |
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Basic Public Tool/Resource Information
At registration some of the basic public information was set for your tool/resource. This is the primary information with which users encountering your tool/resource on NITRC will be presented and is used to generate NITRC search results.
Some of this information can be modified and other public information can be set by following the "Edit Public Info" link at the top of your administration pages. The following fields may be changed on the Edit Public Info page:
- "Descriptive Tool/Resource Name" is the name of your tool/resource as it will appear on NITRC.
- "Tool/Resource Visibility" sets whether your tool/resource is visible to all NITRC users (public) or only visible to its members (private).
- "Short Description" is for a brief description of your tool/resource that will appear at the top of your tool/resource Summary page. It is the primary description of your tool/resource that NITRC users will see and should be descriptive enough to give a sense of what your tool/resource does but short enough to be accessible for users looking over NITRC search results.
- "Funding Source" is for any sources of funding or other acknowledgments for your tool/resource. Since some users may search for tools/resources by grant number or other funding source, you offer an additional way for users to find your tool/resource by providing this information.
- "Homepage Link" is a link to your tool/resource’s home page, accessible by following the "Home Page" link on your tool/resource Summary page. This allows users to access the primary home for your tool/resource if it is not on NITRC.
- "Active Features" is a list of the built-in functionality available for your tool/resource. Most of these features appear in the tool/resource menu. It is of particular importance since NITRC's search functionality relies heavily on the functionality you list here.
- "New Document Submissions" is for the e-mail addresses of those who will review all new document submissions for your tool/resource. This is how you will be notified of user-contributed documentation. Please separate multiple addresses with commas.
Tool/Resource Menu
The tool/resource menu initially shows NITRC-supplied functionality, but it is configurable. It is the primary means for users interacting with your tool/resource, including finding documentation, downloads, and getting help, so it should point to up-to-date resources and forums, mailing lists, and trackers that are actively monitored.
"Summary," "Reviews/Ratings," "Support," and "Advanced Search" are always present for all users, and "Admin" is always present for tool/resource administrators. (For groups such as interest groups, it may be possible to remove the "Reviews/Ratings" functionality; please contact moderator@nitrc.org for more information.) The other built-in menu items are as follows:
| Menu name | Description |
|---|---|
| Docs |
Documentation (Consider including pdf documentation, for ease of printing and accessibility.) |
| Downloads | Downloadable files |
| Forums | Discussion forums |
| Mailing Lists | E-mail lists |
| MediaWiki | Wiki |
| News | Tool/resource news |
| Source Code | Source code management (CVS, SVN, etc.) |
| Surveys | Tool/resource surveys |
| Tasks | To do lists and tracking |
| Tracker | Bug reports, support requests, etc. |
To add or remove built-in NITRC functionality from the tool/resource menu, use the "Active Features" section on the Edit Public Info administration page. You may have additional functionality available for your tool/resource through links separate from NITRC. To configure the tool/resource menu with custom functionality, use the Custom Tool Menu Entries administration page.
| Note: As stated above, the NIH would like listed tools/resources to have a certain level of compliance. All tools/resources should have a Docs menu link, and most tools/resource should have a Downloads menu link. These links can point to built-in NITRC functionality or to custom functionality. |
Attribute List Classification
Classifying your tool/resource in the Attribute List is important so that users browsing by functionality or platform (or other criteria) may find your tool/resource. On the main Administration page in the "Misc. Tool/Resource Information" section is a link labeled "Attribute List Classification: [Edit]." Please follow this link to classify your tool/resource. Please select as many descriptions as are appropriate for your tool/resource. The more applicable selections you make, the greater the chance users will find your tool/resource as they narrow their search by attribute. The license you selected at registration is automatically selected on this page, but please select any additional licenses as appropriate on this page as well.
If you would classify your tool/resource in a way that isn't supported by the current attribute structure, please contact moderator@nitrc.org.
Group Members
On the main Administration page to the right is a "Group Members" section. This section lists users who are associated with your tool/resource ("members" of your "project" or "group"). You may add users to and remove them from your tool/resource group here, as well as change their roles. A user may only have one role for a given tool/resource, so if you try to add yourself as a "Developer," it will have the effect of changing your role to "Developer" and removing your administrative privileges. To change the privileges given to a user who is not a member of your tool/resource group, use the form under "Edit Observer." To change the privileges for member roles for your tool/resource group, use the form under "Edit Roles."
There is a special role called "Reference" that is created by default for every group. This role is intended for users who would like to act as a reference for your tool/resource and are volunteering to be contacted by other users to assist in using your tool/resource. Because this role is intended to identify users but not give any special access to your tool/resource, by default this role is given permissions matching those of non-members ("observers"). (Exceptions are that a reference user may access new forums or other new components that are restricted to tool/resource members, and that reference user permissions override any changes to observer permissions you make. While we are looking into solutions for these issues, you may fix them by changing the permissions for the Reference role.)
NITRC users may request to join your tool/resource group. These users are listed in the "Pending Requests" area. Here you can accept a user’s request and at the same time assign a role to the user, or you can deny the request.
Tool/Resource Associations
Another good way for users to find your tool/resource and other tools/resources listed on NITRC is through associations. If your tool/resource is associated with another tool/resource, you can note this using the associations feature. If you create an association with another tool/resource, it is noted on your Summary page; an administrator of the other tool/resource is notified and may then choose to display the inverse association on their Summary page.
Association types are:
- Plugin ("is a plugin for"/"can be extended by")
- Build Dependency ("build requires"/"is required to build")
- Execution Dependency ("execution requires"/"is required to run")
- Subproject ("is part of"/"has subpart")
- Interaction ("works well with")
- Foundation ("is from the makers of")
To manage associations, follow the Tool/Resource Associations link at the top of the administration pages. There you can add associations with other tools/resources, edit existing associations, and manage whether others' associations with your tool/resource are displayed on your Summary page.
| Note: Associations are displayed on the Summary page of the tool/resource making the assertion even without the approval of the other tool/resource's administrator. This is merely an extension of the ability to make such assertions through, for example, a tool/resource's summary statement. We hope that conflicts may be resolved personally, and that this new functionality may even help to this end by identifying conflicts. |
News
News items may be posted by following the "Submit" link on your tool/resource’s News page, which is accessed through the "News" link in the left side tool/resource menu. News items appear immediately on your Summary page. News items of interest to the larger NITRC community may, at the NITRC team’s discretion, also be posted on NITRC’s front page. News items will not be rewritten before posting on the front page, but the NITRC team may make minor edits in order to maintain consistency in front-page news items.
If you decide not to use NITRC's news manager for your tool/resource, you may still submit news to be considered for NITRC's front page. Simply click "Submit Community News" under the main "Community" menu.
Citations
We recommend that you take advantage of the Docs feature for showing citations for your tool/resource (of technical publications describing the functioning of the tool/resource and of application publications that use the tool/resource). Two document folders, Application Publications and Technical Publications, are created for all tools/resources at registration. You may upload the document directly to one of those folders or provide a URL to an external location or a PubMed ID.
User Contributions
If you welcome contributions to your tool/resource from the public, you may set user role permissions as described in the Group Members section above to give observers permission to contribute, or you may create a custom role with specific permissions to allow users to contribute to the tool/resource.
Interaction with Users
You can interact with users through the bug, support request, and feature request trackers that are set up by default with your NITRC tool/resource. These trackers allow for attachments so users can send data sets or screen shots with their query. Note that these attachments are publicly viewable; users may send private data by uploading a document to your document manager. Uploads by non-privileged users must be approved by a tool/resource administrator before becoming public, so supporting data may be sent through the document manager, and then downloaded and deleted by you, the tool/resource administrator, without being publicly visible.
NITRC has an Acrobat Connect account that you may use for training, assisting users, or recording tutorials. Please contact moderator@nitrc.org to use Acrobat Connect.
Tracking Access
In addition to basic download counts made available on the site, it is possible to get a portion of the raw Web logs that describe access to your downloads; please contact moderator@nitrc.org for this information.
| Note: When a file release gets removed, the download count total will be reduced by the download count number for the removed release. This will happen if you remove a "linked-out" file release in order to update/change the external URL. In order to maintain total download counts, it is recommended that you avoid removing packages and releases in the file release system; an alternate solution is to add a new release or package and "hide" the outdated release or package. |
It is also possible to use Google Analytics to track access to your NITRC tool/resource pages.
Removing a Tool/Resource
If you decide you no longer want users to access your tool/resource on NITRC, you have two options:
- Make your tool/resource private.
- Contact the moderator to remove your tool/resource from NITRC.
Making a Tool/Resource Private: All tools/resources registered with NITRC are initially made available to the public, but tool/resource administrators do have the option to make their tools/resources available only to members. There are two ways to make your tool/resource private:
- Click the "Admin" link in your tool/resource menu. To the right of the Admin page, in the Group Members section, click the "Edit Observer" button. Here you change the tool/resource privileges setting from "Public" to "Private." If you later wish to make your tool/resource available to the public, follow these same steps, and change the tool/resource privileges setting from "Private" to "Public."
- Click the "Admin" link in your tool/resource menu. Click "Edit Public Info" at the top of the page. Toward the top of the page, to the right of the "Descriptive Name" field, select the "Private" radio button for "Tool/Resource Visibility." If you later wish to make your tool/resource available to the public, follow these same steps, and select the "Public" radio button for "Tool/Resource Visibility."
Removing a Tool/Resource: If you really want to remove your tool/resource and all its data from NITRC, you must contact moderator@nitrc.org. Please be aware that all content will be lost and the UNIX name cannot be used again. The moderator will ask you to make the tool/resource private as described above and to change the public description to something like "delete me." The moderator will then remove your tool/resource from NITRC.
