Heurist is at heart a collaborative system, that clearly separates your private information from information about records of mutual interest you share with your colleagues.

As a collaborative database, researchers can share an overlapping set of records in a single database, and can communicate with one another around those records through a range of shareable communication channels. (Researchers can also 'bookmark' records to maintain their own personal, private set of information about any record.)

Heurist can be used for group projects, with tasks divided between those designing the database ('Designers') and those populating it and/or searching it ('Users'). Or it can be used by individual researchers who wish to create and use a database for their own project and who take on both tasks.

Database owners can:

• Set up workgroups and add members to workgroups. These members can collaborate on research projects by sharing research data/functions with their colleagues (i.e. fellow members of the workgroup) through a range of collaboration tools.
• Display a subset of record types for a specific group of users, protected from modification or viewing by non-members.
• Override record type

You can share information with other users through:

• Setting workgroup tags. Share tags between workgroup members.
• Adding shared text. You can add extended notes to any record or engage in a discussion with other workgroup members.
• Sending email reminders. Notify other users of records that might be of interest to them.

Records are (in most cases) shared between all users. But any given user will only be interested in a small subset of records, and will want to record personal information about each record. You can do so through Bookmarks, which allow you to attach personal (private) information (i.e. your own tags, ratings and notes) about any records (including other user records) that interest you. Bookmarks also allows you to collaborate with other users by sharing information about records of mutual interest. (See Bookmark Records.)

You can also share information with other users through Exporting Data. You can export your data in a range of formats (HML, KML, RSS, Atom etc.). (See Export Data.)

Workgroup Access

Workgroups are defined by administrators. A workgroup administrator can add members to the workgroup(s) of which they are an administrator but cannot create a new workgroup. Records can be restricted to ownership by a workgroup, and may be visible only to members of that workgroup or editable only by the workgroup members but visible to all. Ownership of records and limitation of editing or viewing rights can be applied at the Workgroup level, that is, limiting the ability to change or even see records to the members of that Workgroup. This is discouraged for resources of a generic nature, since it inhibits correction and enhancement of data.

Record Access

Access to a record is determined by:

• Ownership. This determines who can edit a record. The shared information may only be edited by members of that workgroup.
• View Permissions. This determines who outside the owner can view a record (i.e. record visibility).

You can set the ownership and visibility of a record individually. The default is all database users are owners (can edit) and any logged in user can view.

Records can only be owned by a single workgroup. Once a record is marked as owned by a workgroup, only members of that workgroup can change its ownership and visibility. A user can change ownership for an individual record to selected users if:

• they are the owner
• they are an administrator of the workgroup that owns it
• if it is owned by everyone; by default, records are 'owned' by any logged in user of the workgroup.

Ownership and view permissions should only be restricted for records which are private to a workgroup.

Setting Access

Ownership of a record (who can edit the record) and visibility of a record (who can view the record) is set initially when the record is created (via the Add New Record Screen):

You can edit this access from the Edit Record page:

This displays the Record Access dialog:

Tip. To change record ownership/visibility for multiple records, search and select one or more records from the Search Results pane and select Share | Set Workgroup, and complete the Change Record Access dialog.

Settings are:

• Ownership (Record is editable by) can be set to:
• Shared. Anybody (No Restriction). By default, all new records are set to Shared ownership, in the spirit of collaborative databases, and all shared information can be edited by any Heurist user. For personal databases select your name, to restrict access to yourself.
• You. You are the only person who can edit the record.
• Database Owners. Anyone who is a member of the Database Owners group can edit the record.
• Other Workgroups. Anyone who is a member of the workgroup can edit the record. In addition, records may be marked as Hidden (see below), in which case all view or edit permissions to the record can be restricted to a Workgroup by a member of that Workgroup.
• Viewability (record is viewable by) can be set to:

• Hidden. (Only members of this group can view the record.) Records are only visible to workgroup members.
• Viewable. (Any logged-in user can view the record.) Any (logged-in) user, regardless of workgroup, can view the record. By default, all new records are set to Viewable by any Heurist user.
• Pending. (Flagged for external publication, any logged-in user.) This provides the same viewability as Viewable above, but 'flags' that the record is not available for Public viewing. For instance, if you area making edits to a record and haven't reviewed these yet. (Public records automatically revert to Pending whenever they are edited.)
• Public. (Published - written automatically to external views.) The record (other than fields marked 'Restricted') can be published for Public (external to Heurist) viewing.

Any records you want others to see can be made Viewable. They will not be editable by anyone who is not part of the owner group. You can set the default for new records to Hidden or Viewable.

To hide information from other users, set ownership of all records to yourself, or to the database owners group, and set visibility outside group to Hidden.

Example: Research assistant access. If you want to give someone write access to part of your database, create a new workgroup, make them a member, and make the group the owner of the set of records you want them to be able to edit. They can view (unless records are set to Hidden), but will not be able to edit, records owned by groups of which they are not a member.

Note. The Discussion section of a visible record is not governed by record ownership, since individual users own their own comments. So anyone can add comments. However, if the record is hidden non-members of the workgroup will not have access to the discussion section. The Rich Text section of a visible record is not governed by record ownership, since individual users can add text blocks which they own. However, if the record is hidden non-members of the workgroup will not have access to the text section.

Set Workgroup Tags

These are tags that are available to all members but maintained by the Workgroup Administrator (see Add Workgroup Tags).

The Workgroup Tags page allows you to select tags that are available to your workgroup members. Selected tags appear in the Keywords area of a record and are only visible to the members of the workgroup.  This allows workgroup members to refer easily and quickly to records using termonology that is familiar and meaningful to the group (e.g. as a group of researchers working collaboratively).

To add/remove workgroup tags for a record

1. Navigate to the Edit Record page | Workgroup Tags tab for the record. The Workgroup Tags pane displays.

Note. For personal databases you will probably not be using workgroups, and there will be no workgroup tags listed under Available.

2. To move a tag to the Selected list, click it and click the right-arrow button.:

3. To remove it, click it in the Selected list and click the left-arrow.
4. Save you changes.

Tags will now appear under the relevant workgroup, letting you search records based on their tags:

       

Add Shared Text

The Text tab on the Edit Record page allows you to add extended notes to your record or engage in a discussion with other workgroup members.

There are two components in the text tab:

• Extended Text. This allows you to enter and edit multiple blocks ('chunks') of text. For each chunk, you can enter formatted text, and add links and graphics. You can set the editability and visibility of the content individually for each chunk. The Extended text area allows the user to add their own personal notes and choose to make them private (visible only to them) or public (shared with their workgroup or other specified workgroups or individual users.  In contrast to the Discussion area, which is intended for a shared view only.

Note. The Text Editor is very similar to the Notes field on the Private Information tab except that it defaults to being visible to other users (whereas the private Notes field defaults to being visible only to the owner of the bookmark).

• Threaded Discussions. The threaded discussion section allows nested discussion between group members, with each comment being owned by a specific user. Only that user can edit or delete their comments. This provides a space for the exchange of ideas or views and records the names of the contributors.

To enter extended text

Click on the Extended Text field:

and enter the text in the Rich Text Editor (See Rich Text Editor.):

To add a new discussion comment

1. To start a new discussion, from the Discussion pane, click Add Comment.
2. Enter your text in the text field:

3. Click Save Edit to save the comment.
4. To add another, top-level comment, click Add Comment again.
5. To reply to another user's comment (discussion), click Reply to this for the comment.

Replies are nested:

6. Edit or delete top-level comments as required.

Send Email Reminders

You can notify workgroup members of one or multiple records you are working on immediately.

(See also Bookmark Record | Send Email Notifications.)

To send email notifications

1. Select one or more records.
2. Select Edit | Notify (Email).

The Share Records dialog displays:

3. Complete the dialog as follows:

• Who: Select who you wish to send the notification to: A specific user (member names are displayed as you start typing), a group, or enter an email address.
• Message: Add a message to be attached to the notification.

4. When complete, click Share.

The notification is sent immediately and includes a message and a hyperlink to the Search Results pane displaying the selected records.

If required, the recipient can then act upon the records as they wish: bookmark them, add them to their collection etc.

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