Glossary
Updated
This glossary provides an overview of terms and concepts relevant to RSpace Community, RSpace Team, and RSpace Enterprise.
A
ADV: Advanced Search – Functionality available from the RSpace Workspace toolbar to build complex multi-element search queries
AND/OR filters – When using Advanced Search, you have a choice (selecting one from two radio buttons) whether to join the elements of the query by AND or by OR. Choosing AND returns a set of results which match both the first filter AND the second (removing any which only match one); choosing OR returns a set of results which match either one filter OR the other (i.e. including all results which match one or other of the filters or which match both).
Annotation – Written notes which can be added to instances of images when editing an RSpace document. The original image remains in the Gallery and can be used elsewhere, the annotation remains part of the document, and can be edited by anyone with permission like any other content.
Audit Trail – Users’ actions in RSpace can be viewed, selected from and reviewed by themselves, their PI and system administrators. The auditing mechanism (located in My RSpace) gives scope of what you can audit according to roles and permissions.
AV Gallery: Audiovisual gallery – The audiovisual section of the gallery in RSpace is where you can import and organize audio and video files.
Asc/Desc button – The Asc/Desc button allows documents of all types to be sorted in ascending/descending order.
B
Basic Document – the simplest document you can create in RSpace, the Basic Document is an open-input single field document which you can freely add text, images, links, etc to without using any field structures or building multiple pages or chapters. See Structured Documents for use of defined field structures, and Notebooks for how to create content over multiple pages, documents and sections. Notebooks are built from Entries, which can be made from either basic or structured documents as required.
Box – When available (dependent on institutional policies), RSpace allows integration with a number of external file storage and management systems including some public cloud services. Box is one such service which is supported.
C
Cloud RSpace – see RSpace Community
Collaboration Group – A collaboration group in RSpace consists of two or more LabGroups, and enables some or all users from each LabGroup to work together.
Community – A Community in RSpace is a group of LabGroups within a single RSpace deployment. Note that this is distinct from RSpace Community, which is a version of RSpace itself (see RSpace Community).
D
Directory – In RSpace, ‘The Directory’ is a listing (found under the My RSpace tab) of users, groups and communities in that RSpace instance. In RSpace Community, the users are not displayed as a list, but are available as a search-based resource to find users by know criteria.
Documentation – Documentation in RSpace refers to the written portion of our Help and Support resources.
Dropbox – When available (dependent on institutional policies), RSpace allows integration with a number of external file storage and management systems including some public cloud services. Dropbox is one such service which is supported.
E
External Filestore –> see Filestore
F
Filestore/Filesystem – Many institutions which use RSpace may already have established methods and locations for file storage. Some may have multiple, named filestores on a single system, accessed by permission, and others may have multiple systems, each containing many stores. Institutional RSpace users can set up connections to both stores within a system, and multiple systems, and save the connections as quick access links in their Gallery.
Form – In RSpace, a ‘Form’ is a particular kind of re-usable starting point for a document which can be created by users and made available for use. Essentially, a form defines an empty structure of named fields to be used for creating structured documents with a consistent form or structure. Once made, a form can be published for individual use, made available to a group, or be open to anyone. Users can add available forms to their ‘Create’ menu to be able to instantly make new documents based on the form.
G
Gallery – The RSpace Gallery is a storage and management area for files and documents which can then be used in RSpace documents – whilst the Workspace is a view and manage area for documents created in RSpace, while the Gallery is for all kinds of files which are either brought in from outside (such as images, videos, spreadsheets, etc) or can be taken out of RSpace (such as PDFs). The exception to this is the Snippets and Templates Galleries, which are created and used within RSpace. The Gallery is categorised by file types, and files dragged directly into documents are placed into the Gallery and can be re-used elsewhere. Also, if linking to external file stores is enabled, these external file locations will be found in a File Stores section in the Gallery.
Google Drive – When available (dependent on institutional policies), RSpace allows integration with a number of external file storage and management systems including some public cloud services. Google Drive is one such service which is supported.
H
I
Institutional RSpace –> see RSpace Enterprise
J
K
L
LabAdmin – A Lab admin is a group-specific role in RSpace. Lab admins have a global User role but can invite new users, remove existing group members, and organize the LabGroup shared folder. LabAdmins cannot view all group members’ documents (only the PI can do that).
List View (see also Tree View) – List view is the default view in Workspace, and shows a paginated list of all documents. Workspace filters can be used for further navigation of shared or favorited documents.
M
Marvin JS / ChemAxon – Marvin JS is a chemical editor that allows users to easily draw and edit chemical structures and formulae within RSpace documents.
N
O
P
Permissions – Permissions in RSpace refer to the different kinds of access users can have to documents. View permission can be thought of as read-only access: a user can view a document, but cannot make any changes to it. Edit permission means that a user has access View permission by default, as well as being able to make changes to the document.
PI: Principal Investigator – Users with the PI role in RSpace can be the leader of a lab, a course leader, or anybody with responsibility for other people’s work. They have all the same capabilities as regular users, but in addition they can add and remove users from their group, alter user roles within their group, organize shared content, view content created by group members, create collaboration groups with other PIs, view and search the audit trail for work performed by group members, and export and archive their group’s work.
Q
R
Request – A Request in RSpace can take two forms. Most commonly, requests are for access to documents. A basic request can be accomplished by sending a message directly to a user. A request can also be made by a PI user to another PI to create a Collaborate Group.
Revision History – The Revision History of a document shows the state of the document each time it was changed from its creation to the most current version. It is possible to both view and restore previous document versions from the revision history.
RSpace Community – RSpace Community is a the free-to-use, publicly available version of RSpace, which is hosted on a cloud-based server allowing anyone to sign up and become a user.
RSpace Enterprise – RSpace Enterprise is a stand-alone deployment version of RSpace provided to a closed community of users in a single institution or location. The version has some functionality unique from the Community version (particularly around administration, group creation and sharing) and can be run on the institution’s own servers or on a unique cloud instance.
RSpace Team - RSpace Team is for academic and commercial customers that want administrative control over their RSpace instance and access to RSpace Inventory, but do not require all the features of Enterprise such as SSO or an on-premises deployment.
S
Signing – The owner of a document in RSpace can use the signing mechanism to mark it as complete. A signed document can still be viewed by anyone with permission to view it, but it is closed for editing.
Snippet – A Snippet in RSpace is fragment of content from a text field that a user wishes to reuse in their subsequent work. Snippets are stored in their own section of the Gallery.
Structured Document – A structured document is a document with multiple fields, with each field designed for a specific type of content. Users can configure the fields to suit their needs.
Structural Formula – A structural formula refers to any type of chemical structure or formula in RSpace. Structural formulae can be drawn and edited using the Marvin JS tool from within the text editor.
T
Template – An RSpace template allows users to reuse the structure of a document without necessarily replicating the entire contents. For example, templates can be very useful when recording results of multiple experimental iterations.
TinyMCE – TinyMCE is the text editor used in RSpace.
Tree View (see also List view) – The Tree View in the Workspace is a way of viewing a the folder structure and organization of documents. Clicking on any folder name expands it to show contents and subfolders within the tree.
U
V
Versioning – Versioning in RSpace allows users to view and restore previous versions of documents at will. This can be accomplished by selecting a document and clicking ‘Revision History’.
W
Witnessing – Witnessing a document in RSpace is similar to signing, but is an added layer of verification of the document’s completeness by another user (either the LabGroup PI, or another contributor from the group with access to the document).
Workspace – The Workspace is the default point of entry in RSpace, and it is from here that users can create, view, edit, share, and organize all document types. It is accessible throughout the application from the Workspace tab.