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Permissions

MaveDB uses a role-based permission model to control who can view, edit, publish, and delete resources. This page provides a consolidated reference for how permissions work across all resource types.

Roles

MaveDB recognizes three user-level roles for datasets (experiment sets, experiments, and score sets):

  • Owner: The user who created the resource. Each resource has exactly one owner.
  • Contributor: A user added to the resource by the owner. Contributors are identified by ORCID iD and share most of the owner's permissions, with some exceptions noted below. See the Contributors section of the Metadata Guide for details on adding contributors.
  • Authenticated user: Any user logged in to MaveDB who is not the owner or a contributor.
  • Anonymous user: A visitor who is not logged in.

Collections use a separate set of roles described in Collection permissions below.

Datasets

Experiment sets, experiments, and score sets share the same permission model. The key distinction is between private (unpublished) and public (published) resources.

Action Owner Contributor Authenticated user Anonymous
View (public) Yes Yes Yes Yes
View (private) Yes Yes No No
Edit Yes Yes No No
Delete (private only) Yes No No No
Publish score set Yes No No No
Upload variant data Yes Yes No No
Add score set to published experiment Yes Yes Yes No
Add calibration to published score set Yes Yes Yes No

Key points:

  • Published resources cannot be deleted by anyone. If a published score set contains errors, it can be superseded by a corrected replacement.
  • Only the owner can publish a score set. Contributors cannot publish on the owner's behalf.
  • Only the owner can delete a private resource. Contributors cannot delete resources they are added to.
  • Any authenticated user can add a score set to a published experiment or add a calibration to a published score set.
  • Editing published resources is limited to free-text metadata (title, short description, abstract, methods). Target, score, and count data become un-editable after publication.

Score calibrations

Score calibrations have a distinct permission model because they can be created by users who are not the score set owner. Permissions differ based on whether the calibration is investigator-provided or community-provided.

Action Investigator calibration Community calibration
View (public) Anyone Anyone
View (private) Calibration owner + score set contributors Calibration owner only
Edit (private) Calibration owner + score set contributors Calibration owner only
Delete (private only) Calibration owner only Calibration owner only
Publish Calibration owner only Calibration owner only
Change rank (promote/demote primary) Calibration owner + score set contributors Score set contributors only

Key points:

  • Published calibrations cannot be edited or deleted.
  • The main difference is visibility and editing scope: private investigator calibrations are visible to and editable by the entire score set team, while private community calibrations are only visible to their creator.
  • Community calibration owners cannot change rank — only the score set team can promote a community calibration to primary status.

Collections

Collections use a role-based model with three collection-specific roles, separate from the dataset contributor system:

  • Collection admin: Can edit the collection, add/remove datasets, publish, and manage roles.
  • Collection editor: Can edit the collection and add/remove datasets.
  • Collection viewer: Can view a private collection but cannot modify it.
Action Owner Collection admin Collection editor Collection viewer Authenticated user Anonymous
View (public) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
View (private) Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Edit Yes Yes Yes No No No
Add/remove datasets Yes Yes Yes No No No
Publish Yes Yes No No No No
Manage roles Yes Yes No No No No
Delete (private only) Yes No No No No No

Key points:

  • Only the owner can delete a private collection. Collection admins, editors, and viewers cannot delete collections.
  • Official collections (those with a badge) cannot be deleted by anyone except system administrators.

See also