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Overview of Information Hub
Information Hub Training & Support Documentation v1.0.0 29 August 2023
This document serves as the training & support documentation for the Information Hub. This document can be used as training mterial, or to provide documentation for users of the system.
The Information Hub (IH) is a cloud-based, community-driven, self-help data platform for transdisciplinary scientific research. The IH aims to provide a solution for ongoing research data management and integration.
The IH offers a desktop, browser-based platform for the technical user (researcher) as well as two variants of the mobile app. The mobile apps consists of a full app, titled “Information Hub” and a lite version of the app, aimed at the non-technical, end-user, titled “Information Hub Go”.
These apps can be identified by the following icons:
Information Hub |  |
Information Hub Go |  |
This section briefly talks about the different high-level concepts that are of importance in the IH. There are two main concepts of organisation in the IH. These include:
- Organisation and User Management
- Projects
Each of these are briefly discussed in the following sections.
The IH is built on-top of an organisational scheme defined around three entities:
- Organisations
- Groups
- Users
Organisations
Organisations are collections that represent some organisational entity such as a Company, Institute, Partner etc.
Groups
Groups are collections, underneath organisations, that represent some organisational group in the organisation entity such as research group, department, collaboration vehicles.
Users
Users are entities in their own right and can be a part of an organisation and/or groups, but can also stand alone.
The above entities are used to determine the “namespace” for projects. Namespace simply refers to the entity that owns a project. For example, the following namespaces can exists:
- University of Pretoria: The organisational entity is the University of Pretoria, and no group is specified.
- FABI/TPCP: The organisational entity is FABI, and the group is the TPCP.
- arneschreuder: The organisational entity is the user itself.
Projects represent the main working entity in the IH. Projects are owned by some namespace as described above. Projects encapsulate the majority of functionality in the IH and consists of the following functionalities:
Overview
The Overview module shows a summary of the project information as well as the resources in use.
Dashboards
The Dashboards module provides a set of capabilities to the user to build visual dashboards and reports. The dashboard module works alongside the Tables, Forms, Storage and Apps modules.
Tables
The Tables module provides a set of capabilities to the user to model and store structural data. The table can either be modelled from scratch or the model for the table is created on data import. The Tables module works alongside the Dashboards, Forms and Apps modules.
Forms
The Forms module provides a set of capabilities to the user to create survey-like forms to collect and capture data. The Forms module includes different layouts, form validation, geolocation tracking and offline capability. The Forms module works alongside the Tables, Dashboards, Storage and Apps modules.
Storage
The storage module provides a set of capabilities to the user to store and persist unstructured data. The Storage module works alongside the Tables, Dashboards, Forms and Apps modules.
Manager
The manager module provides a set of capabilities to the user to do project management. The Manager module implements kanban-style project management boards, with tasks/cards that capture rich text and can be allocated to users, along with a due date.
Wiki
The Wiki module provides a set of capabilities to the user to create rich-text documentation based on Markdown syntax. Pages can be pinned and includes capabilities to embed documents, videos and other rich media. The Wiki module works alongside the Forms and Apps modules.
Apps
The Apps module provides a set of capabilities to the user to create no-code apps to share with end users. Apps are lite-weight collections of shared Dashboards, Forms and Wiki pages. Apps form the main functionality of the Information Hub Go app.
Users
The Users module provides a set of capabilities to the user to invite users to join the project. The Users module provides customisable roles and permissions that can be allocated to users to define what exactly a certain type of role/user can and can not do on the project.
Settings
The project Settings module provides a set of capabilities around the configuration of the project. This includes the project name, visibility, roles on the project and the option to delete the project.
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