How to use the Asset Repo

What is the Asset Repo?

The Asset Repo is a means to capture, share and use data across projects and with other users in DataLabs.

How do I use data in the Asset Repo?

From the home page select Asset Repo. This will take you to a page as seen below where you can see all projects that are available to you (either they are classified as public, or are available to projects that).

asset repo

The following entries are associated with each entry;

  • Name The name of the Asset.
  • Version The version of the asset defined by the owner.
  • Asset Id The internal ID of the dataset.
  • File Location (For Admins) Where the data is stored on the storage server.
  • Master URL Where you can find more about the data, or the original source of the data. This can be a DOI if the data is published elsewhere.
  • Owners One or multiple users who are responsible for this asset within the DataLabs.
  • Visibility Who can use this asset, either set to Public where anyone can access the data or By Project, where either one or a number of projects have access to the asset but no-one else.
  • Projects If visibility is set to By Project, which projects can access the asset.

You can search the assets using the search box at the top, once you have selected an asset you are interested in, use the Master URL to find out more about it if relevant.

asset repo search

If you have found an asset you would like to utilize. You can use it by either;

  • Selecting the ellipsis and Add to Notebook.
  • Browsing to a notebook of yours and selecting the ellipsis followed by Edit, and adding the asset to the notebook. (NOTE: Doing this will restart the notebook so any unsaved work should be saved.)

asset repo attach

Once an asset is attached to a notebook, it will be accessible under within the assets folder at the base of the notebook. By default this will be done for all newly created notebooks.

Note when adding an asset to an older notebook prior to the release of the asset repo this can be replicated by creating a symbolic link yourself from the base of the notebook to the /assets folder as described below.

cd <Base Directory>
# For Jupyter this should be something like /data/notebooks/jupyterlab-<notebookname>
# or for RStudio the base of the project

ln -s /assets ./assets
# This creates a symbolic link from the base directory to the /assets mount point and
# allows it to be visible in the file pane

Can I request a new asset to be hosted?

Yes, if there is an asset you would like to use yourself or would be useful to the wider community get in touch with us on Slack or via e-mail. For certain datasets which are hosted e.g in the EIDC catalogue, there may be considerations around licensing which will prevent us from hosting a copy of the data however we will endeavor to help.

Can I submit my own assets to be hosted?

Yes, as with requesting a new asset we are able to accept your own data to be hosted in the Asset Repo and made available to others, get in touch with us directly to work this out.

Can I restrict assets data to my own project?

Yes, assets can be configured to be only accessible via specific projects if required.

Can I use assets within sites?

Yes, assets can be attached to sites and detached from sites.
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