Resources

Resources are the hub's catalogue, and for most members they are the reason the hub exists. A resource is one thing somebody has made and wants other people to be able to find, use and cite: a dataset, a seminar recording, a set of slides, a homework assignment, a tutorial, a simulation tool. Each one gets a page with an abstract, its authors, its files, and a ready-made citation. Anyone with an account can contribute one. They live at /resources on the hub.

The catalogue is what turns work that would otherwise sit on a lab share into something with an address. A thermal transport lab has a set of scripts that reduce raw thin-film conductivity measurements, and a worked example that shows how to use them. Every new student in the lab is emailed the same zip file. Contributed as a resource, it becomes a page anyone can link to, with the authors credited, a citation other groups can put in a paper, and one address that stays right when the scripts change.

A resource is not a publication

The two look alike and are not the same thing.

• A resource page describes and delivers work. You can edit it after it is live, and it carries no version history or identifier of its own.
• A publication is a frozen, citable release with its own DOI, assembled from a project and reviewed by a curator. See Publications.
• A collection is your personal board of things you want to find again. It holds pointers, not work. See Collections.
• A project is the private workspace a piece of work happens in before any of this. See Projects.

If you need a permanent identifier for a dataset a paper depends on, publish it. If you want colleagues to find and use something, contribute it as a resource. Many groups do both.

What kinds of resource a hub holds

The types on offer are decided per hub, and a bare install creates none of them, so the Categories list on /resources is the only reliable statement of what your hub publishes. A typical set runs to Seminars, Workshops, Tools, Datasets, Presentation Slides, Teaching Materials, Course Lectures, Tutorials, Homework Assignments, Posters, Publication Preprints, Videos, Podcasts, and Series, but a hub can add, rename or remove any of them.

The type matters to you for two reasons: it decides which tabs a resource page shows, and it decides which extra fields you fill in when you contribute one. A Seminar asks for a speaker biography; a Dataset does not.

Finding a resource

The resources home page explains what resources are and who may submit them, and gives you three ways in: a Find a resource search box, a Browse the list of available resources link, and a list of Categories — the resource types this hub offers, each with a short description. Need Help? opens the built-in help.

Browse at /resources/browse lists everything you are allowed to see. Search by keyword or phrase, sort by Title, Published, or Ranking, and narrow the list with the type menu, which starts on All Types. The Popular Tags cloud beside the list filters by tag; click more tags to narrow further, and the x on an applied tag removes it.

Clicking a category on the home page opens a tag browser for that type, where you pick a tag and then a resource from the column beside it. Hub managers can turn the tag browser off, in which case the category link goes to the ordinary browse list.

Every resource has a permanent address, https://<your hub>/resources/<id>, and often a friendlier one built from its alias. That is the address to put in an email or a paper; it does not change when the contributor edits the page.

Reading a resource page

Getting from the listing to the thing itself is one click and then one more. The listing gives you titles; the title takes you to the resource page; the button at the top of the resource page gives you the thing. There is no download area to hunt for.

A resource opens on its About tab. That shows the abstract, any screenshots, an At a glance table of details the contributor filled in, the Contributor(s) list, Tags, and a Cite this work block with the citation to use in a publication — with EndNote and BibTeX downloads, and a DOI where the hub assigns one. A prominent button at the top launches the tool, opens the presentation, or downloads the main file.

More tabs run across the top. Which ones appear depends on the resource type and on what the hub has enabled:

Tab	What it holds
About	The description and details, as above.
Supporting Docs	Extra files and documents attached to the resource.
Reviews	Star ratings and reviews from other members.
Questions	Questions and answers about the resource.
Wishlist	Feature requests and wishes for it.
Citations	Published work that cites this resource.
Usage	Usage statistics and a map of where it is used. Tools only.
Versions	The released versions of a tool. Tools only.
Find this Text	Links that help you locate a copy elsewhere.
Setup/Instructions	How to launch a Windows tool.

A sidebar beside the tabs may show the group that owns the resource, a See also list of related pages, the resource's sponsor, and a Watch resource button.

Some resources are restricted. A Registered one asks you to log in first; a Protected one shows its abstract to everyone but limits the files to members of the owning group; a Private one is only visible to that group. If you hit one you may not read, the page tells you which group to join.

Rating and reviewing

Open the Reviews tab and select Write a review. Pick Your Rating from one to five stars, write your Comments, and press Submit. The form takes a rating and a comment and nothing else; there is no tag field on it. Check Anonymous if you would rather your name did not appear. You must be logged in, and you cannot review a resource you are a contributor on. Come back and use Edit your review to change it. Other members can reply to a review, vote on whether it was helpful, and use Report abuse on anything offensive.

Watching a resource

Watch resource in the sidebar subscribes you to changes; the hub then notifies you when the resource is updated. Stop watching resource ends it. You have to be logged in for the button to appear.

Contributing a resource

Contribute when you have something finished that other people would use, and you are tired of emailing it to them. The five steps below are followed the whole way with the thermal transport lab from the top of this page: it is contributing its measurement-reduction scripts, the worked example, and a short PDF explaining the method.

Go to /resources/new, or use Submit a resource on the resources pages, and select Get Started. You must be logged in. The same page lists your submissions still In Progress, so you can pick up where you left off; each step saves as you leave it.

First choose the type of resource you are contributing. Only types the hub has marked contributable appear. The lab picks Teaching Materials, because the scripts are meant to be learned from; a hub without that type would take File or Package instead.

Then work through five steps.

Compose. Give the resource a Title and an Abstract/Description; both are required. The lab's title is Thin-film conductivity reduction scripts, and its abstract says what the scripts do, what instrument output they expect, and what they produce — the things a stranger needs in order to decide whether to download it. Manage files below the abstract uploads images to use inside the abstract — not the resource's own files. It lists each uploaded file's address as plain text; copy that and paste it into the editor's image dialog where you want the picture. The Details section holds whatever extra fields your resource type defines, such as Credits, Sponsored by, or References.

Attach. These are the files a visitor actually downloads or views. The lab uploads the script package, the worked example, and the method PDF here, and orders them with the package first. Use the Click or drop file box to upload one, or the link adder beside it to point at a URL. Click a name to rename it, then press save, or cancel to leave it alone. The Order arrows move an entry up or down, the trash icon removes it without asking, and the Access cell toggles between Public (anyone may view or download it) and Registered (logged-in members only). If the type is a collection, such as a series, this step adds existing resources as members instead of uploading files.

Authors. Optionally hand the resource to one of your groups under Group ownership, and set the Access level non-members get: Public, Registered, Protected (abstract visible, files for group members only), or Private (group members only). Protected and Private require a group. Then list the contributors — enter names or logins separated by commas and press Add. Someone without a hub account can still be listed by name; they just will not link to a profile. Set each person's Organization and Role and press Save; use the up and down arrows to change the order they are credited in, and the delete icon to take someone off.

Being listed as a contributor is what grants editing rights. If you take yourself off the list, you keep them only if you also created the submission.

Tags. Type keywords into Assigned Tags, choosing from the auto-complete list where you can so your resource sits with related work. The lab tags it thinfilm, the same tag it puts on its group wiki pages, so that one tag page gathers the lot. See Tags. The hub may also suggest tags, and may ask you to pick a focus area.

Review. Read the authorization statement and tick the box to agree — the submission is rejected without it. Choose a License if the hub offers them; its text appears below the menu. Check the preview of the page, then press Submit Contribution.

A submission must have at least one contributor, and where the hub requires it, at least one attachment.

After you submit

Most hubs review submissions. Yours goes to pending and the hub's managers are emailed; when they approve it, it goes live in the resources listing and near the top of What's New, and you are notified if the hub has that turned on. Some hubs approve everything automatically, or approve particular contributors automatically, in which case the resource is published straight away.

The In Progress table on /resources/new tracks all of this. A draft shows Review & Submit ›, and its title, attachment, author, and tag counts link straight to the matching step. A pending submission shows ‹ Retract, which puts it back to draft so you can keep working. Once a resource has passed review, opening it again takes you to the Review step, where you can change the license and press Save; the other steps stay editable from the step bar, and each Next saves your changes.

The Delete icon at the end of a row discards the contribution — its description, linked files, and tags — after you tick Confirm discard. This cannot be undone.

Where to go next

Tags connect your resource to everything else on the hub — see Tags. To gather resources into a personal reading list, see Collections. To ask about a resource or request a feature, see Questions and answers and Wishlist.