Managing Groups

Introduction

Groups in BrainSTEM are essential for organizing lab members and managing permissions. This tutorial will guide you through the process of managing groups effectively, including understanding different permission levels and performing common management tasks.

Group Permission Levels

BrainSTEM groups have three levels of membership, each with increasing levels of control:

Permission Level	Capabilities
Members	View group resources Inherit project permissions assigned to the group Leave the group voluntarily Cannot modify group settings or membership
Managers	All Member permissions Add new members to the group Remove existing members from the group Create and manage member invitations Cannot modify group settings or grant privileges
Owners	All Manager permissions Associate group with laboratory information Rename the group Promote members to Manager or Owner roles Modify all group settings Full administrative control

Visit the permissions page to learn more about the BrainSTEM permission system.

Accessing Group Management

To access your group’s management page:

1. Navigate to the Groups page:
   • Visit https://www.brainstem.org/private/auth/group/
   • Or click the Users icon in the top navigation bar and select Groups
2. Find your group in the list and click on it to access management options

Manager Capabilities

As a group manager, you can add and remove members, as well as manage invitations.

Adding New Members

To invite a new member to your group:

1. Go to your group’s management page
2. Click the Invite user button
3. Select the user from the dropdown list.
4. Click Submit to send the invitation

The invited user will receive an email notification and must accept the invitation to join the group.

Checking Invitation Status

To monitor pending invitations:

1. Navigate to https://www.brainstem.org/private/users/groupmembershipinvitation/
2. View the status of all pending invitations
3. Monitor which invitations have been accepted or are still pending

Removing Members

To remove members from your group:

1. Access your group’s member list
2. Locate the user(s) you want to remove
3. Check the checkbox next to their name(s)
4. Click the Save button to confirm the removal

Removing a member will revoke their access to all group resources.

Owner Capabilities

As a group owner, you have full administrative control including the ability to promote members, and modify group settings.

Managing Member Privileges

To promote members to Manager or Owner roles:

1. Access your group’s member list
2. Locate the member(s) you want to modify
3. Check/uncheck the appropriate boxes:
   • Managers checkbox: Grants manager privileges (can add/remove members)
   • Owners checkbox: Grants owner privileges (full administrative control)
4. Click Save to apply the changes

Owner privileges should be granted carefully as they provide complete control over the group, including the ability to modify all settings and member roles.

Associating with Laboratory

To link your group to laboratory information:

Group owners can associate their group with institutional and Principal investigators for better organization and identification.

1. Access your group’s settings page
2. Click the Add Laboratory button
3. Fill in the laboratory details:

Field	Description
Principal investigators	Select from group members
Website	Lab website URL (optional)
Department	Department name
Institution	University or research institution name
City	Laboratory location city
Country	Laboratory location country

1. Click Save to apply the association

Laboratory associations help other users identify your research group and can be useful for collaboration and data sharing.

Renaming the Group

To change your group’s name:

1. Go to your group’s main page
2. Click the Edit button
3. Locate the Name field at the top of the form
4. Enter the new group name
5. Click Save to confirm the changes

Choose group names carefully as they should clearly identify your lab or research team. Other users will see this name when collaborating on projects.

Next Steps

After setting up your research groups, you’re ready to organize your research:

• Create collaborative projects: Use Managing Projects to organize your research and enable team collaboration
• Set up your lab infrastructure: Follow Setting Up Lab Infrastructure to configure equipment, setups, and inventories that your group can access
• Configure data storage: Set up Managing Data Storage locations that your team can use for data management
• Start documenting experiments: Begin with Get Started to create your first subjects and sessions with proper group permissions
• Plan for data sharing: Learn about Share Data Publicly when you’re ready to make research openly accessible