1 Databrary 1.0

Databrary is a digital data library specialized for storing, sharing, and streaming video and audio with a restricted set of institutionally authorized users based on the sharing release level granted by individual research participants.

2 Technology stack

Databrary consists of a database in PostgreSQL, a backend framework in Haskell, and a frontend system in Javascript (AngularJS 1.x). Most users interact with the system via the browser, but a documented API is available (https://github.com/databrary/route-doc) for remote client use (e.g., https://github.com/PLAY-behaviorome/databraryapi). The application is hosted on servers at NYU. The static documentation site is located on a separate server from the application. The documentation site is generated via Pelican from Markdown. All code is shared on GitHub: http://github.com/databrary.

3 Glossary

See also https://www.databrary.org/resources/definitions.html.

  • Volume or Volumes. Collections of data or materials. Databrary assigns all volumes a volume ID, e.g., https://nyu.databrary.org/volume/1 and all shared volumes are granted unique persistent identifiers (DOIs).
  • Session or sessions. Collections of data within a volume. A session most often represents a single visit by a participant (or set of participants interacting together) in a study and usually refers to a specific combination of locations, people, and tasks where data was collected.
  • Materials. Components of a volume that are not specific to a particular session.
  • Slot or slot ID. An identifier used to access a specific session or set of materials. Sessions and materials are indexed by a slot ID, e.g., https://nyu.databrary.org/volume/1/slot/6256/- refers to slot 6256 within volume 1. An example of a slot containing materials is https://nyu.databrary.org/volume/2/slot/9819/-. Within the spreadsheet for a given volume, the slot or slot ID also refers to a folder within which multiple files are stored.
  • Folder. A container with a volume ID and slot ID that contains assets.
  • Asset or assets. Individual files stored within a (session or materials) slot within a volume. The files can be of a fixed variety of specified types as specified here: https://nyu.databrary.org/asset/formats. For example, the asset at https://nyu.databrary.org/volume/1/slot/9807/-?asset=1 is a simple video file Databrary’s development team uses to test the system and its API.
  • Release levels. The level of access granted to an asset and/or session by a research participant. Databrary implments a standard set of release levels defined here: https://www.databrary.org/resources/guide/investigators/release/release-levels.html. Each release level has a unique icon https://www.databrary.org/resources/guide/investigators/release/release-levels.html. Every session and every asset within a session is assigned a release level of private by default. Different assets within the same session may have different release levels.
  • Affiliate. An individual, affiliated with an Authorized Investigator who operates under that Authorized Investigator’s sponsorship and supervision. The access privileges of Affiliates are under the control of one or more Authorized Investigators.
  • Authorized investigator. An individual who has permission from an Institution to conduct independent research, who has received authorization through their Institution and from Databrary to view, download, and contribute Data. An employee of an Institution who has the background and training in scientific and administrative oversight necessary to conduct and manage research. Institutions determine who may be eligible to conduct independent research, but this typically includes tenure-track faculty (Instructor through Professor, sometimes Emeritus), research or clinical faculty, and may include archivists, curators, and librarians. Research Associates, Research Assistants, and other staff are not considered to be independent investigators, and therefore are not typically granted permission to conduct independent research.
  • Party or party ID. A person or institution who either has access to Databrary or can authorize a person to access Databrary (e.g., an institution). For example, https://nyu.databrary.org/party/12 shows that Penn State is an institution with a party ID 12, while https://nyu.databrary.org/party/249 shows that Kristin Buss is a person with party ID 249.
  • Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR). The designated individual who is authorized to sign and enter into contractual agreements on behalf of an Institution.
  • Collaborator. A person with read or read/write privileges on a volume. In the Manage Access tab within the Manage Volume page https://nyu.databrary.org/volume/VOLUME_ID/edit?page=access, Collaborator refers to any person with access to a volume, not just those with read or read/write access.
  • Investigator. A person with read/write/share/authorship privileges on a volume.
  • Volume privileges or privileges. The actions a user is permitted to take on a given volume, these include read (view and download assets), read/write (view, download assets, upload or edit assets, edit volume metadata), and read/write/share (view, download assets, upload or edit assets, edit volume metadata, edit access to the volume by others, have name included among authors in the bibligraphic citation generated for the volume).

4 Pages

4.1 Home/splash page

Example: http://nyu.databrary.org

  • A carousel of video excerpts that link to the source volumes.

  • Menu items
    • Login/register. Login or register button or dropdown with View Profile, Create Volume, and Logout commands/links.

  • Menu items
    • Search. Link to search page.
    • Contact. Link to Contact page on static site.

4.2 Registration page

Example: http://nyu.databrary.org/register

  • Guides users through the process of registering for access, creating an account and password, and requesting authorization from an institutional or individual sponsor.

  • Components
    • Create Account. Panel where registrant creates account information (name, email, affiliation).
    • Get Started. Panel where registrants can read the Databrary Access Agreement and agree to Databrary’s three guiding principles.
    • Confirm Email.
    • Set Password. Panel where the user creates a secure password for Databrary.
    • Request Authorization. Panel where the user selects a sponsor for authorization. For an Authorized Investigator, the sponsor is an institution. For an Affiliate, the sponsor is an Authorized Investigator.
    • Submit Authorization.
    • Stay Tuned. Panel informing registrant to wait for more information from Databrary.

4.3 Profile page

Example http://nyu.databrary.org/profile

For a user who is logged in, this shows a ‘private’ page.

Viewable by the public at https://nyu.databrary.org/party/6 along with a list of shared volumes.

4.4 Volume page

Example: https://nyu.databrary.org/volume/1

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  • Components
    • For collaborators only, clickable view (eyeball icon) and edit (pencil icon) buttons to switch between (view/edit) modes. A clickable volume history button to show the edit history on a volume.
    • Description of Dataset. A short narrative description of the dataset, similar to a paper abstract.
    • Links. One or more (URL) links to related resources.
    • How to Cite. A Databrary-generated citation (in APA format) for the volume, including a DOI.
    • File Release Levels. A Databrary-generated table showing what data and materials are shared at what release levels.
    • Avatar/icon. An image or still frame from a video. The avatar/icon is drawn from the set of Highlights.
    • An icon indicating whether a volume is private (locked padlock icon) and thus shared only with specific users, partially shared with a volume overview only (keyhole icon), or shared (open padlock icon).
    • Investigators. The users who have investigator (read/write/share/authorship) status on the volume.
    • Collaborators. The users who have collaborator (read or read/write) status on the volume.
    • Highlights. Images, audio or video recordings that are highlighted and featured on the volume page.
      • Separate audio, video, or image files may be selected.
      • Audio and video files may be played.
    • Data
      • Show saved display mode. A drop-down menu used to select one of a set of default display modes (NIH Inclusion Enrollment Report or Session release level summary) or a saved custom display mode.
      • Show summary. A pivot-table that allows users to create their own tabular summaries of data elements from fields in the spreadsheet.
      • Filter by. Interface to filter the displayed results from the spreadsheet.
      • Summarize by. An interface (via selectable tabs) for choosing how to order the sessions and materials from the spreadsheet. All spreadsheets with sessions or materials can be summarized by folder. Only those spreadsheets with data about individual participants can be summarized by participant.
      • Spreadsheet. Provides data fields for describing sessions and materials. A session or materials slot is represented by a folder. Clicking on a sessions or materials folder icon opens up a slot or folder view page (see below).
    • Tags
      • An interface to add keywords or tags that describe a volume. These become part of the searchable metadata.
    • Comments
      • An interface to add comments about a volume.

4.5 Manage volume page

Example: https://nyu.databrary.org/volume/1/edit?page=overview

This page opens when the user (with edit privileges) clicks on the edit/pencil icon from a volume page. It has separate tabbed sections.

4.5.1 Overview

Provides an interface to enter volume overview information. Fields include correspond to published paper or resource (link), title, description, internal short name, key words

Volume Overview

Volume Overview

4.5.2 Manage Access

Has two subsections: Share this volume with radio buttons to select from (Private (closed padlock icon)/Share Volume Overview Only (keyhole icon)/Share Entire Volume (open padlock icon)) and Collaborators which shows a list of the people with privileges on the volume.

Manage Access

Manage Access

4.5.3 Design Spreadsheet

Interface (and instructions) for designing components of a study, specifically the data fields about participant characteristics that will be included in the spreadsheet. Users select from various Categories of fields (participant, pilot, exclusion, condition, group, task, context). This generates a Spreadsheet Preview.

Design Spreadsheet

Design Spreadsheet

4.5.4 Enter Data

An interface to enter data via the spreadsheet, including adding a materials folder.

Enter Data

Enter Data

4.5.6 List Funding

An interface for entering one or more funding sources. There is a search bar to search for, e.g. “NSF”. Each funding source has a source field generated from the results of the search bar, and an award # or description field.

List Funding

List Funding

4.6 Slot or Session or Folder view page

Example: https://nyu.databrary.org/volume/1/slot/6256/-

4.6.1 Slot/Sesssion/Folder components

  • Clickable view (eyeball icon) and edit (pencil icon) buttons to switch between viewing and editing modes. A clickable session history button to show the session history. [NB: This functionality may be broken.]
  • A text entry window to add new keywords or tags.
  • “Timeline” depictions of metadata information that apply to the slot
  • A bar/timeline like depiction of each asset (file) in the slot
  • A Viewer panel appears when the bar/timeline for an asset is clicked, for example https://nyu.databrary.org/volume/1/slot/6256/-?asset=9828. Video, audio, PDF filetypes (only?) can be viewed here. The viewer panel also contains a drag and drop region for uploading new/replacing existing files.
  • A Comment box for adding comments specific to a slot.
  • A clickable download all files as zip text tag.

4.6.2 View

Selected by clicking on view/eyeball icon.

View Slot

View Slot

If the selected asset is a video, a video player appears.

Play video

Play video

4.6.3 Manage

Selected by clicking edit/pencil icon.

Manage Slot

Manage Slot

4.6.4 Upload data

Selected by clicking Add File button.

Upload Data

Upload Data

4.7 Search page

Example: https://nyu.databrary.org/search

Search Page

Search Page

A ‘plus’ icon expands to show a streamable/playable thumbnail if the volume has one.

Search with Expanded Thumbnail

Search with Expanded Thumbnail

5 Access model

5.2 Authorized Investigator privileges

Authorized Investigators are automatically granted (read/download) access to all shared data and materials on Databrary. Authorized Investigators may also create new volumes, read/write/edit/change access to volumes. On a volume-by-volume basis, Authorized Investigators choose who is a collaborator (view/read or view/read/write privileges) and who is an investigator (view/read/write/authorship/share privileges). Authorized Investigators also choose whether or not each Affiliate has (read/download) privileges on Databrary.