What Is HUBzero?

HUBzero is an open source software platform for building powerful Web sites that support scientific discovery, learning, and collaboration. Some refer to such web sites as “collaboratories” supporting “team science.” We call them “hubs” because each site becomes a focal point for its user community.

Hands-On Introduction

This brief session guides participants through the process of uploading materials and sharing them on a hub. The general process works the same way on all hubs. For these exercises, we’ll use the hubzero.org site, which is also a hub.

Exercises

#1 – Register and Log In

For this first exercise, you’ll create an account so that you can upload content in the exercises below. Go to http://hubzero.org and click on the Register link in the upper-right corner of the page. Fill out the form and click on the Create Account button. You’ll receive an email asking you to verify your email address. Click on the link to prove that you received the email, and then log in. Congratulations! You’re now a registered user.

Extra Credit: Try updating your user profile. Once you’re logged in, click on your name in the upper-right corner of the page. Then edit your institution, biography, and interests. Try uploading a profile photo, if you like.

#2 – Upload a Resource

For the next exercise, you’ll upload a technical report or presentation slides to share with the hub community. Don’t worry. If you don’t want your contribution to show up on the hub, you can cancel at the last minute, or the workshop coordinator can remove your posting.

Start at the Resources Page on hubzero.org. Click on the Submit a Resource button in the upper-right corner, then click Get Started. Choose the type of resource—probably “Reports,” but you can choose “Seminars” or “Teaching Materials” instead, if you like.

The next series of screens walks you through the process. On the first page, fill in a title and a brief abstract. Then, click Next at the bottom of the page.

On the next screen, you’ll attach the documents for the materials you want to upload. This may be a single file (Word document), or a couple of files (PowerPoint slides and PDF handouts). Upload your documents and click Next.

The next screen lets you set authors and privacy. You can choose a group and make this resource private to the group. We’ll skip that for now. Try adding an author by typing a name in the Authors box and clicking Add. Then, click Next.

The next screen lets you add tags to categorize this work. Try typing “pre” and choose something off of the list that appears. Or, type your own tag and press the comma key to add another. Add a few tags, then click Next.

The last screen asks you to certify ownership and select a license. You can see a preview of your resource at the bottom of the page. Click the Require check box and select a Creative Commons license, if you like.

If you want to bail out at this point, you can click on the Cancel link in the upper-right corner of the screen (under Status). Or, if you want to see what it’s like to submit something, click Submit Contribution.

Congratulations! Your resource has been submitted. At this point, it is waitin g for an administrator to approve it. Once it’s approved, it will show up on the What’s New page for the hub.

#3 – Create a Private Project Area

Some users need to work together privately—to analyze data, write a paper, or prepare a proposal. You can do that by creating a private project area for a group of users.

Go to the Projects page and click on the Start a Project button. Then, fill in a title for the project and a short name for the project URL. Click Yes, I’ll do it now to describe your project.

Write a brief description of your project. Upload a thumbnail image, if you like. Then, click Save all and continue.

Next, invite people to join your project. If you’re in a workshop session with other people, pick someone else in the room. Type their name in the Individual slot and select a match from the drop-down list. Then, click Add to add them to the project. Click Save all and continue to move on.

Finally, agree to the privacy policy and click Save all and continue. Welcome to your new project area!

Click on the Files tab on the left-hand side to see the file repository for this project. Click the Upload button to upload files into the repository. Everyone on the project will have access to these files.

Click on the To Do tab on the left-hand side to access project management functions. Click on Add a To Do to create a new item. Describe the task, assign it to someone in the project, give it a due date, and click Save. Add a comment to the note, or click on Check off to mark it complete.

Click on the Updates tab on the left-hand side to see all of the things that have happened within the project. Add your own update message and click on Share with team.

#4 – Create Collections

Collections provide an easy way to gather and share information. Click on the My Account link in the upper-right corner of the page. Then, click on the Collections tab along the left, under your profile picture.

Click on the tab that says 1 collections. By default, everyone has one collection called Favorites. This collection is private by default, so nobody else can see what you put on it. Click on the New Collection button, then create a new (public) collection called Cool Stuff. Then, click on your new collection and click New Post to post an item in that collection. Upload an image, a PDF document, or a link. Enter a title or a brief description, and add some tags, if you like. Then, click Save to post this item.

Go to the Collections page on hubzero.org to view posts from other people. Find a post that you like and click on the Like or Comment button. Click the Collect button to add a post to your own collection, so you can find it easily later.

Reference Materials

Created on 01 Feb 2015, Last modified on 02 Feb 2015