Welcome

This user guide introduces the Data Catalog, a central interface designed to organize, register, and discover research data within BRIGHT.

It serves as the metadata management layer and gateway to the underlying research data infrastructure, ensuring that all data assets (Projects, Datasets, and Files) are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR).

The Purpose of Data Catalog

The Data Catalog provides a secure and structured environment for managing active data, making it as open as possible and as close as necessary within BRIGHT.

Specific goals include:

  • Provide a centralized data portal to enhance FAIR data principles throughout the data lifecycle.

  • Enable data/metadata capture, data enrichment, efficient and standardized automated workflows.

  • Provide visibility and overview of accessible data.

  • Ensure governance on all systems and data.

  • Establish a strong research data management support function.

Key Data Assets

Projects

A Project is the top-level organizational entity in the Data Catalog. It represents a research or analytical unit that includes all the data and metadata associated with a specific study.

Projects can represent:

  • An individual experiment

  • A collaborative research effort

  • A data reuse study

Each Project includes:

  • Description, contributors, objectives, and methods

  • One or more Datasets, which may include internally generated, externally acquired, or publicly sourced data

  • Access control and data provenance

Datasets

A Dataset is a logically grouped collection of related data files within a Project, representing a structured set of information generated under consistent experimental, computational, or analytical conditions.

Each Dataset includes:

  • Metadata describing its origin/type, purpose, methods, instruments and parameters and relationships to other datasets

  • A defined data stage (Raw, Processed, Results)

  • Versioning and provenance tracking for traceability

Files

A File is the lowest-level data entity managed by the system. It is stored within a Dataset and represents a single unit of data content (e.g., sequence files, image, table, or model output) in a specific format.

Each File has:

  • A unique identifier within the system

  • A defined file format (e.g., .fastq, .csv, .tiff, .h5)

  • Metadata describing its content, origin and checksum for data integrity

Note

Checksum is a unique fingerprint used to verify that the file has not been altered or corrupted.

Authorization

The Data Catalog is currently only accessible by personnel officially employed or associated with BRIGHT. Each dataset can belong to one or more projects and project metadata is visible to all BRIGHT employees with read-only access.

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