User Guidelines

User categories

To become a user and/or data provider for the Forest Plots Database you need to fill in a registration form and accept the user agreements.

• User: registered participant with access to the data subject to approval by plot data managers and principal investigators (PI).
• Data provider: registered participant who uploads forest plot information to the database. Data providers have to confirm that they have the rights to upload and manage the information they are providing. In addition, a data provider has to state the terms for which other users can access their data.
• Plot data manager: Registered participant who is in charge of granting/denying different levels of access to other users. The plot data manager is in charge of communicating with the database administrator. The plot data manager should be the first point of contact for people who want to use their plot data for analysis and publications. We encourage data providers to nominate a data manager for each plot.

Data categories and management.

Access and manipulation of data is restricted to users on terms specified by the data manager and/or plot PI. Permissions to view, edit and upload data are granted on a plot by plot basis.

Data managers and principal investigators have full access to their data so they can view and edit information already stored in the database and upload new data. Completely restricted access to a plot means that users, except for the data managers and PIs, can not view any of the information related to a restricted plot. Basic access level allows the user to view only plot metadata for a particular plot/plots.

Database physical location and management

The forest plots database is hosted at the University of Leeds and is managed by Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez (School of Geography ).

The role of the database manager and the database team is to facilitate information exchange among scientists. Final decision on access to data rest with the plot data manager and PIs.

Database user guidelines

To become a user and/or data provider for the forest plots database you need to fill in a registration form and accept the user agreement. Ensure that the PIs and database manager have the opportunity to be involved in your analyticial work and writting. Inform the PIs and database manager of any publications, presentations, posters where you use the data provided by the Forest Plots database.