SASSCAL Data Portal

The SASSCAL Data Portal is a web-based data management and dissemination platform that is being developed within the research project 'Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management' (SASSCAL) link for general information.

This tutorial aims at giving SASSCAL Data Portal users an overview of general features and describes how to use them in a step-by-step fashion.

Software requirements

In order to access and use OBIS, only a current web browser is needed. OBIS primarily tested using recent versions of the Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, and Google Chrome web browsers. As some of the OBIS user interfaces are best displayed on screens with resolutions of 1200x800 pixels and above, web browsers running on smartphones might not be suited.

Tutorial outline

This tutorial is divided into the following parts covering different functionalities and components:

• Getting Started:
  • Account Management: login procedure and user account settings
  • Menu Structure: navigation through the menu
• Browsing Data:
  • Searching and Filtering Data
  • Visualizing Data
• Editing Data (in Categories):
  • Area of Interest
  • Biodiversity
    • Observatory
    • Plot
    • Plant species
  • Soil
    • Horizon
  • Station
    • River System
  • Time Series Data + export, analysis
  • Space Time Data
  • Geo Data + manage metadata, edit map
• Further options:
  • Documents: Additional literature (publications, presentations, etc.)
  • Other Data: Additional data and observations
  • Processing Tools: SASSCAL Data Sources and Processing Software