Communities: Discover, Join, and Share

Find Communities

A community is a set of groups, which allows several differently administered groups to collaborate toward a common goal.

To discover communities, click on the Collaborate tab on the header at the top of the page. The Find Communities page shows a listing of all discoverable and/or public communities created in HydroShare. Users can filter results by searching for keywords found in community names, purposes, and descriptions. Clicking the community's title navigates to the community’s landing page.

The collaborate landing page on Hydroshare.org. The subheader reads "collaborate". There are two labeled icons below the subheader. The first is labeled "Groups". A paragraph next to the icon reads: "Groups allow research teams to share Private resources among members. These are often themed around a concept or event. Access and permissions to Resources are administered by designated individuals in each Group.". The second icon below is labeled "Communities", and is circled with red to draw attention to it.. A paragraph next to the icon reads "Communities are designed for Groups to share resources more seamlessly, fostering public data sharing and open access. Current examples of Communities include collaborations between large research networks and collections of universities."

My Communities

On the My Communities page, users can view and manage their Community memberships. To get to the My Communities page, click on the Collaborate tab at the top of the page, and select My Communities. From this page, users can navigate to a community landing page. 

Landing Pages

Each community's landing page displays information about the community and provides access to community resources. The page includes: 

  1. Public Resources listing - shows public and discoverable resources shared with the community and allows for searching resources with keywords.
  2. Shared By list - shows the community member groups and allows for quick filtering of resources by group.

Any user can access the landing page and all public resources shared with the member groups.

NOTE: Communities and groups do not own any resources in HydroShare. Only individual users may own resources. Resources may be shared with a group and a community, but ownership is retained by the user. To make a resource visible in the Community view, the resource must be public and shared with a Group that is a member of that Community.

Membership

Communities are a new feature in HydroShare that consist of multiple groups. A user can be part of a community via group membership. Currently, there is no direct way for a user to create a community or request to join a community. If you are interested in learning more about communities or considering a community for your own project, please reach out to help@cuahsi.org