Each study in the system has an overview page, which contains key documents, metadata, and variable and file information. To reach the Study Overview page, you must locate a study in the Study Explorer or Variables Catalog and click on the “Study Name.”
On the Study Overview page, you can:
Study Overview contains comprehensive study information, it begins with the study name, and below that, a Study Information section lists several attributes to help you gain a high-level understanding of the study.
Request study data access, including harmonized and non-harmonized data file access in dbGaP. Navigate to the Request Data Access section of the tutorial to learn more.
The Study Overview page contains downloadable, publicly available documents. There are two ways to download documents (Figure 2):
- Option 1 - Download Individual Documents: To download a single document, press the download icon in the download column on the documents table. The document should appear in the browser’s download center for you to open or save.
- Option 2 - Download All Documents: To download all documents, press “Download All” in the upper right of the documents section. A zip file with all study documents will appear in the browser’s download center for you to open or save.
The Data Files section has downloadable metadata and data dictionary files and viewable variable information to help you learn more about a study and its data, before requesting access.
In the Data Files table, data and supporting files are organized by bundles. Specifically, each bundle contains a metadata and data dictionary file, aligned to a harmonized or non-harmonized data file.
While you cannot download original or transformed files from the Study Overview Page, you can download associated metadata and data dictionary files. To do this, click the download icon in either the Metadata or Dictionary columns (Figure 3). The file will show up in the browser’s download center for you to open or to save.
You can view metadata files in an easy-to-read, interactive tool called the Metadata Viewer, powered by CEDAR. To access the Metadata Viewer, click on the eye icon in the Data Files table. This will open a window that lists several different metadata attributes in the file. To the right of each label are help tips, which contain metadata attribute descriptions. Additionally, you can expand accordions to see more metadata attribute information.
You can also view information on data file-based variables contained by clicking the carrot in the “Number of Variables” column (Figure 5). This will open a table, letting you find the data file variables.
