Getting Started on the Hub

Registering with the Hub

When creating a profile on the Local Contexts Hub, you will register using an email address and create a username and password.

The next step is to verify your email address. Click on the link in the email from no-reply@localcontextshub.org to log in to your newly created Local Contexts Hub profile. Check your spam or junk folder if you cannot find the email in your primary inbox.

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Create and Edit Your Profile

Your Hub profile can help other people on the Hub get to know you when you decide to join an account or collaborate on a Project on the Local Contexts Hub.

How to create a profile 

Once your email is verified, you can create your personal profile. You can share basic information.

To edit or update this information after registration, click on the “Edit Profile” button on your dashboard.

In your profile settings, you can also join, create, or leave an account; change your password; and deactivate your account. This information can be edited anytime, just make sure to click the “Save changes” button.

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Create an Account

What is the purpose of an account?

Accounts are workspaces created specifically for an entity, which is separate from your user log-in information. An account enables the development, collaboration, and management of Local Contexts Labels, Notices, and Projects. You should join or create accounts for communities and institutions that you are already affiliated with. You can be a member of multiple accounts and account types.

There are four account types:

• A community account is for a sovereign Indigenous or local community, including a Nation, First Nation, Iwi, Band, Tribe, Confederation, Land Council, Native Hawaiian Organization, or Alaskan Native Village Corporation, who may be represented by an entity such as a cultural department, library, archive, museum, community center, Tribal Historic Preservation Office, Land Council or Corporation, or Indigenous Rangers. Community accounts customize and apply Traditional Knowledge and Biocultural Labels on behalf of their community.
• An institution account is for cultural and research institutions and data repositories, typically not governed by an Indigenous or local community. This includes archives, libraries, museums, historical societies, galleries, data repositories, universities, and other organizations. Institution accounts generate Notices for the Indigenous collections or data they manage.
• A researcher account is for an individual who carries out academic or scientific research independently or in an institution. Researcher accounts generate Notices for data, publications, and other outputs.
• An integration partner account is for any organization that integrates a connection to the Local Contexts Hub into their platforms to enable other account types to access their Labels and Notices. An integration partner could be a collections management system (CMS), repository workflow platform, or information aggregator.

You can create or join an account after your profile has been created.

How to join an account

Before creating a community or institution account, check to see if this account has already been created in the Hub. There are two ways you can search for and join an existing account:

Option 1: Joining an account when registering

To find out if your community or institution has an account when registering, click the ‘Join’ button underneath the account type of your choice. This will lead you to a page where you can browse the accounts currently registered on the Hub.

To request to join an account, select the account and follow the prompts. If you request to join an account, information from your profile will be sent to the account to identify who you are.

Option 2: Joining an account through the Registry

The Local Contexts Registry is a list of all the accounts participating in the Local Contexts Hub. This is available anytime from the navigation bar at the top of the Local Contexts Hub.

Registered users of the Hub can contact and request to join other accounts on each account’s public page. To get to an account’s public page, navigate to the Registry, find the account, and click the “View public page” button.

If you request to join an account, information from your profile will be sent to the account to identify who you are.

How to create an account

You can create a community, institution, researcher, or integration partner account during registration or from your profile dashboard.

What is the confirmation step?

The confirmation step helps to ensure community accounts that are being created in the Local Contexts Hub have permission to be active on the platform. 

In order for a community account to be fully activated on the Hub, we ask for confirmation from a community representative. This representative should be someone who has responsibility for authorizing community initiatives, or third-party/external agreements.

There are two options to complete this part of the registration process:

Option 1: Confirm through email

Provide contact details (name and email address) of the representative. In order for the account to be fully activated on the Hub, the representative will need to respond to an email within 90 days to confirm that the account being created has the necessary approval from the community.

Option 2: Confirm with a letter

Upload a letter from a community representative outlining their approval and awareness of this account being created on the Local Contexts Hub. This letter can be a PDF, JPG, or PNG. A template for the letter and introductory overview are available on the downloadable resources page.

What is a community boundary?

In working towards our goal of supporting a mapping option to connect communities with their belongings and data, the first stage of this feature has been added to community accounts, which have the option to add a community boundary.

We are using the term “community boundary” to represent the spatial areas which the community has relationships with and/or responsibilities for. This could represent legal territorial boundaries or traditional areas of interest — areas where a community might be interested in Projects.

We acknowledge that the interests of different communities may overlap and at times the representation of community boundaries may be a source of tension.

There are currently three options for adding a community boundary:

Option 1: Draw a boundary

Add your community boundary by manually drawing it on the provided map. Use the search bar to look for a specific location, and the map tools to draw a shape representing your community boundary.

A community boundary can be added when you are registering your community account, or in your community account settings. The boundary can be edited or removed in your community account settings.

We are interested in your feedback about this new feature.

Option 2: Search the Native Land Digital database

Native Land Digital is an Indigenous-led mapping tool that maps Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages around the world. Search the Native Land Digital database by address, town, or community name to select your community’s boundary. After making a selection, view the location on Native Land Digital’s website to confirm the selected boundary is appropriate. If your boundary is not appropriate, please contact Native Land Digital.

Option 3: Upload a shapefile

Add your community boundary by uploading a shapefile. A shapefile is a vector data file format commonly used for geospatial analysis. You can create shapefiles on third-party websites like ArcGIS and QGIS. 

What are Connections?

The Connections tab lists each of the accounts you have connected with through Projects on the Local Contexts Hub and their contact details. This tab is a way to access Projects organized by collaborators’ accounts.

To go to an account’s Connections page, click on the Connections tab in the sub-navigation bar in your account.

From here, you will be able to see any other accounts that you have collaborated with. Clicking on the “Show More” button, you can view their public Registry pages, view their contact information, and see which Projects you collaborated on.

Note: Connections with community accounts will generate only if the community has applied a Label to a collaborating Project.

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Add and Manage Members

What is an account member?

Members are the people who are a part of an institution or community account. There is no limit on how many people can be a part of one account. Each person has a role that will allow them to do certain activities in the Local Contexts Hub.

There are three options for roles within each account:

• Administrator: An administrator is responsible for managing members and communicating with external interests. Administrators also have the ability of Editors.
• Editor: Editors can create and contribute to Projects. Editors in community accounts can also customize and approve Labels.
• Viewer: Viewers can view the activity happening in the account but cannot change or edit anything.

How to add a member to your account

Administrators and Editors can invite people to join the account, and  accept requests to join. 

Option 1: Adding new members from the Members section

Administrators can add new members within the Members section of the account. After clicking the “Add a new member” button, you can search for people already registered in the Hub, or send an invitation by email to those who are not. You can propose a role and add a message, which will be included in the invitation.

Option 2: Adding new members from member requests

Anyone registered on the Local Contexts Hub can Request to join an account through the Local Contexts Registry or during the registration process.

When someone requests to join an account, account administrators will receive an email and notification in the Hub with the requested role and a message. Administrators can accept or decline the request when viewing “Member Requests” in the Members tab of their account.

How to manage members

Administrators have the responsibility to accept new members, change member responsibilities, and remove members from an account.These actions can be done within the Members tab of the account.

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Create a Project

What is a Local Contexts Project?

Local Contexts Projects describe the context where Labels or Notices are being applied. For example, a Project could include: a website, university syllabus, dissertation, research publication, dataset, museum exhibition, archival record, item in a collection, library database, photography collection, voucher specimen, and/or metadata about a record.

When you create a Local Contexts Project, you will be asked for Project details and contacts, and have the option to add metadata. 

Creating Projects allows institutions and researchers to generate Notices and engage, acknowledge, and make visible Indigenous interests in collections, information, and data. Communities may then choose how and when to add their Labels.

Community accounts can apply customized Labels to Projects they create in the Hub, as well as to  Projects they have been sent by institution and researcher accounts.You can see Projects that have been added to the Hub publicly on the Projects Board.

How to create a Project

Local Contexts Projects are created within the Projects tab of your account. To create a Local Contexts Project, you will be asked for Project details and contacts, and have the option to add metadata. 

Institutions and researchers should remember that the audience for the Project is the communities that they wish to engage with and who have rights, responsibilities, and interests in the material, information, and data. This Project information can be sent to communities as a notification after creating the Project.

• Project Notice: Institutions and Researchers select which Local Contexts Notice(s) apply to this Project.

• Project Information: Includes key information about the Project such as Project type, title, description, and external links (as applicable).
• Project Contacts: A space to identify who is involved with this Project. This can include accounts on the Hub or individuals added through their name and email.

• Optional Project Information: This is an optional step to apply any identifiers or metadata already associated with this Project, such as an external ID like a catalogue or accession number, GUID, DOI, or award ID.
• Project Boundary: This is an optional step to  select a geographic boundary for the Project. This will make more apparent to others, primarily Indigenous Peoples, whether your Project touches a geographic area of interest for them. Depending on the type and scope of the Project, the Project Boundary  could be derivative of where your community’s Homelands are, where a collection was made, where interviews were conducted, where a dataset originated, or other geolocating factors. There are several ways to select the geographic area of interest, including uploading your own shapefile, selecting from the Native Land Digital database, or drawing your own boundary in our system. At this time, the Hub supports adding a single area.
• Visibility: Set who can view the Project. You can set the privacy setting to “Private” if only you should be able to view, “Contributor” to share only with collaborators, or “Public” to have a public URL and share within the Project Boards and Registry.

Finally, press the “Save Project” button. You can edit the Project information until Labels have been applied.

Edit and Manage a Project

How to edit a Project

Once you have created a Project, you can edit it at any time. To do this, go to the Project view page and click the “Edit Project” button.

All contributors and notified communities for this Project will receive a notification that the Project has been edited.

Notify Communities (institutions/researchers only)

After creating a Project, institution and researcher accounts can notify community accounts. 

When a community account has been notified, they are able to see information about the Project and decide whether or not they would like to add any Labels.

Institutions and researchers can notify communities using the “Notify Communities” button on the Project page. In the window, search through registered Hub communities and select the one(s) you wish to notify.

You can see which communities have been notified in the Communities Notified section of the Project page.

You will be notified if a community updates the Project status, adds a comment, or applies Labels.

Responding to Projects (communities only)

Institution and researcher accounts may notify community accounts about Projects. When notified about a Project, a community account will be able to view Project details, update the Project status, add a comment, and decide to apply Labels.

Update the Project status using the dropdown menu to define your community’s decision on whether or not you would like to collaborate on this Project. The status options are:

• Acknowledge Notice: You have seen the Project but have not made a decision about applying Labels.
• Labels Pending: You are deciding which Label(s) to apply to the Project.
• No Labels Pending: You will not apply Labels to the Project.
• Labels Applied: This status will be automatically set if you have applied Labels to the Project.

You can use the Project comments to ask a question or provide a more detailed update.

Applying Labels to Projects (communities only)

Communities decide if and when they would like to apply a Label or Labels to a Project. Labels can be applied to Projects you have created as a community or Projects that have been shared with you from institutions or researchers. You can change which Labels are applied to a Project at any time. 

Labels can be applied when viewing the Project page. Click the “Apply Labels” button and then select which Label(s) you would like to apply to the Project. When you select a Label’s checkbox, its description will appear below your Labels.

You can only apply Labels that have been customized and approved. For more information about this process, see “Working with Labels.”

You can include a Community Note to document internal community information about how the Labels are being used on this Project and why. This will only be visible to administrators and editors of your community account.

When you have selected the Label(s) you would like to apply, click the “Apply Labels to Project” button. The Labels will then appear on the Project and can be downloaded alongside the Project information. Any Project contributors will also be notified that Labels have been applied to the Project.

If you are applying Labels to a Project from an institution or researcher account, the Notices will be replaced by the Labels you have applied.

You can change which Labels have been applied to a Project at any time. To do this, click the “Apply / Remove Labels” button and select or deselect which Labels you would like applied.

Accessing Project information for display outside of the Hub

Project information can either be downloaded or accessed with embedding, the Hub API, or connecting to an Integration Partner.

Download

A Project can be downloaded on the detailed Project page. The download will reflect the current Project. The downloaded zip file will include: 

• Readme text file describing the folder contents and directing to the Local Contexts Usage Guides
• Project overview PDF
• PNG and SVG files of the Notice or Label icons
• Text file(s) with the Notice or Label text

Embed

Embedding Hub Projects provides a live connection to a Project on the Hub. To embed a Project, access the “Share” button on the Project page. Select from different embed options and copy the HTML code. Add this code to a website to embed an inline frame (iframe) that will show any Labels or Notices attached to the Project with a link to the live Project page.

Hub API

The purpose of the Local Contexts Hub API is to fetch the details, Labels, and/or Notices associated with a particular Local Contexts Hub Project via a GET request. GET is used to retrieve and request data from a specified resource in a server.

Using the Project’s unique ID, you will be able to use the Hub API to fetch Project details. This requires technical set-up within your platform or website. For more details about the Hub API, see the API Implementation Guide.

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