Help page

Help

User tutorials, a Frequently Asked Questions document, and a glossary are under development and will be posted to this page shortly. In the interim, a brief outline of the CCDB user workflow and some frequently asked questions are provided in this section. Please check back for updated help and FAQ information.

Below is a brief, step-by-step description of how to access the CCDB and how to use the main features of the CCDB workflow.

	Create an Account	To access the CCDB database and workflow screens, users must register and create an account. The process includes accepting the terms for use of the CCDB database and completing a simple online form. Click here to create an account.

	Login (Use existing or new account)	Users must login to the CCDB to access the database and workflow screens. Users may login from the home page, from the Login page, or from the Login link found at the top right of each page.

	Search	The Search screen is presented immediately after logging in to the CCDB. At this search interface users may elect to accept the default settings of "All" or customize a query using any combination of pull-down menu selections or input fields. If the default of "All" is submitted for all fields/pull-down menus on the search screen, the database will return all records from the entire database. To limit the search, specific items must be selected from the pull-down menu or typed into the input fields. Once a selection is made for any of the search criteria, the search is automatically delimited by that specific criteria. Users may specify a search using any combination of fields. Entries are case insensitive (e.g., "dendrite" matches "Dendrite," "DENDRITE," or "dendRIte"). Entries are matched for substrings (e.g., john, matches John and Johnson). If more than one field is entered, entries will be joined by an "AND." Information about the definition and description of the entities queried via this search interface is available here.

	Select Record/Dataset From Search Results Listing	After performing a query, a listing of search results is presented to the user. A summary of the query string used to search the database is presented along with the list of records matching the query. The listing includes the record ID number, the species, region, cell type, and information about the type of microscopy used in generating the data. Microscopy is designated as LM (light microscopy), EM (electron microscopy), or C (correlated microscopy data). Record IDs are listed in the left-most column of the screen as a hypertext link. To access the content for each record, click on the Record ID.

	View, Annotate, or Download Record/Dataset	Upon clicking on a Record ID link in the Result Summary, the corresponding Record Summary screen is displayed. Users may view, annotate, or download data from the Record Summary screen. For each Record ID users may view 2D images, animations, measurements, additional record details, protocols, and SenseLab data annotate data by submitting an evaluation or listing existing evaluations download datasets or measurement files to visualize or analyze

	Visualize or Analyze Data	Visualization and analysis tools for CCDB datasets are available via the Tools section of the CCDB website or via the Software Downloads section of the NCMIR website.