What is a Collection?

This section of the manual explains what a collection is and what user can do with a collection. A collection is a group of any objects in the Morphbank database assembled by members for the purpose of viewing and/or manipulating (e.g. rearranging the order, editing, and/or annotating, etc.) and storing the collected objects for future use.

For instructions on how to create a collection in Morphbank go to:

How to Make a Collection

Currently, there are 3 types of Morphbank Collections:

a Collection of Images (and / or other objects - a mixed collection),
a Character Collection (composed of images & character states) created to illustrate Character States for a defined Character ,
and an OTU Collection (consisting of Specimens and Taxon Names) -- designed to help a user describe operational taxonomic units (OTU)s.

One can also create a collection of collections, which is very useful when putting links in publications to objects in Morphbank.

Collections:

must have at least one image/object. Deleting the last image will leave an empty collection. Do not delete it.
have an order based on the owner's criteria. The initial order will correspond to the order the objects were initially selected.
are identified by a unique Morphbank id which contributors can use to link to the collection from a published paper or web site.
are published (viewable to the world) when released by the creator (default 6 months if not otherwise notified).
may be deleted by the owner, if desired, as long as it is not past the date-to-publish for the collection.

Guidelines for working with collections:

A User may have multiple collections that will be identified by a name on the screen. Since the collection will have a unique internal identifier, the name may be duplicated but is not recommended.

Unpublished owned collections:

A user may alter the makeup of their own unpublished collection by adding or deleting images or other objects.
An image or other Morphbank object can be added to a user's unpublished established collection.

Note: There are no restrictions as to the number of objects in a collection. However, due to speed considerations, the user should exercise caution not to exceed 100 high resolution images per collection.

A user may delete one or more images/objects (or an entire collection) from an unpublished, owned collection.
A user may change the order of the images/objects in their own unpublished collections.
A collection owner may move an image/object from one unpublished collection to another owned, unpublished collection.
An owner of an unpublished collection may annotate that collection.

Unpublished collections owned by other users:

A user may...

browse and view unpublished collections of other users within groups to which he/she belongs.
make a copy of an unpublished collection of another user provided they belong to the same group.
copy an image from any collection to another unpublished, owned collection
annotate an unpublished collection owned by another member in the group.

Published collections:

A user may make a copy of any published collection. (This copy then becomes an unpublished collection owned by the user and group who created it.)
A published collection cannot be edited by anyone but may be annotated.

The user's group/user's collection relationship:

The user's collection will be shared with a group in Morphbank. The user must declare which group they belong to before they create the collection and that collection is shared with the declared group.
The collection will be immediately viewable to all users in that group. (The collection cannot be accessed by the world until it is published).
Although the owner may alter their own collection, other members of the group may not (but they may annotate it)
Other members of the group may make a copy of another user's collection and thus create their own personal copy.

Managing collections:

Image Collections & Character Collections are found in the Collections tab of the My Manager interface of Morphbank.
The Collections tab offers the user a list of all public collections and any they've created (public or private). The user can view other collections there and in addition, modify any of their own unpublished collections. There is no limit on the number of collections a user may have.
Any OTU Collection created is found in the My Manager Taxa tab.
New collections are created or copied through any of the My Manager tabs.
Access all collections owned by other users in Morphbank by clicking the My Manager - Collections tab or from the path: header menu > Browse > Collections which opens the My Manager - Collections tab.
The Collections tab of the My Manager interface allows users to keep track of their personal collections and is directly accessed from the Header Menu > Browse (drop-down to My Manager choices) > click Collections.

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