3 Core Concepts
In this section, we introduce the core terminology for STAPLE elements to help users understand their purpose and function. The following section will demonstrate how these elements appear in practice, with screenshots and step-by-step guides for using them within STAPLE.
3.1 STAPLE Elements
Research projects are made up of many moving parts: overarching goals, specific hypotheses, tasks to carry out, and the people who contribute along the way. To manage this complexity, STAPLE organizes projects into a small set of core elements. These elements provide a shared structure that scientists and collaborators can understand quickly, regardless of discipline.
At the highest level, a Project represents the scientific effort being undertaken: its aims, scope, and timeline. Within each project, researchers define Tasks, which capture the individual units of work needed to achieve those aims. Teams and Contributor/Members provide the human side of the system, reflecting roles, privileges, and collaborations across labs and institutions. Every action taken on a task, whether assigning it, updating its status, or marking it as complete, is recorded in Task Logs, creating a transparent history of progress. Finally, Tags allow projects to be categorized, searched, and documented in ways that make sense for science.
Together, these elements form the backbone of STAPLE, giving research teams a clear, consistent framework for planning and documenting their work.
3.2 Metadata
In scientific research, data alone is never enough, what makes data meaningful is the metadata that describes it. Metadata captures the critical context behind research activities: the methods used, the instruments applied, the variables measured, and the conditions under which data were collected. Without metadata, results can be difficult to reproduce, interpret, or build upon.
STAPLE treats metadata as a first-class feature, not an afterthought. The software also automatically records who did what, and when, embedding provenance metadata directly within projects. Project information, such as data, materials, and analysis code, can be linked within STAPLE and enriched with metadata. These details are captured using the Forms feature, which provides structured templates tailored to research needs. Completion of metadata can be assigned to contributors via Tasks, making documentation part of the normal project workflow rather than an extra burden.
By embedding metadata capture directly into everyday research activities, STAPLE makes it easier for scientists to document their work transparently, meet the expectations of journals and funders, and create records that future collaborators, or even their own future selves, can interpret and reuse. All metadata can be exported as machine-readable JSON for computational use and as human-readable interactive Project Summary reports for sharing and communication.
3.3 Definitions of Terms
3.3.1 User
A user in STAPLE is anyone with an account who has accepted the platform’s terms and conditions. Users can create projects and related elements within their own accounts, and they can also participate in projects owned by others. Users can log in and out, update their personal information (e.g., username, password, email, and profile details), and delete their account. They may add and manage contributors, organize teams within their projects, and assign tasks.
Note: Deleting your STAPLE account does not remove your past contributions to other projects. You will lose editing access, but only a project administrator can fully remove you from their project.
3.3.1.1 Project Administrator
- The user who creates a project is automatically assigned as its project administrator.
- Additional administrators can be added to a project as needed.
- Every project must have at least one administrator at all times.
- Administrators have the highest level of control, including managing contributors, editing project settings, and assigning roles.
3.3.1.2 Contributor
- A contributor is a user added to a project by an administrator.
- Contributors generally have limited access: they can view project information and complete tasks assigned to them but cannot change project settings or manage other users.
- This role allows project teams to include collaborators without granting full administrative privileges.
3.3.1.3 Teams
- Teams are a special type of contributor within a project.
- A user can belong to multiple teams in the same project.
- Teams are useful when a task requires collaboration by a group rather than an individual.
For example, a data collection team working with human participants may need to complete an ethics application. Only one person needs to submit the form within STAPLE, but the entire team receives credit for completing the task. Similarly, a translation team might be responsible for converting study materials from French into Spanish. The collective goal is to provide the final Spanish materials, but all members of the team are credited for the work.
3.3.2 Main and Project Level Options
3.3.2.1 Dashboard
The Dashboard is your personalized home page in STAPLE. It provides a high-level overview of all the projects you’re involved in, along with recent updates and tasks assigned to you. From here, you can quickly jump into active projects, track progress at a glance, and see what needs your attention today. Think of it as your command center for research project management.
In addition to this main dashboard, each project also has its own Project Dashboard. While the main dashboard gives you a cross-project snapshot, the project dashboard focuses on the details of a single project, its contributors, tasks, metadata, milestones, and outputs. Together, the two levels of dashboards help you move easily between the big picture and the project-specific details.
3.3.2.2 Projects
Projects are the central containers for scientific work. Each project includes its own tasks, teams, metadata, and outputs. On the Projects page, you can:
- Create a new project.
- View and manage existing projects.
- Go into the project level dashboard.
Projects provide the big-picture structure that keeps research activities organized and transparent.
3.3.2.3 Invitations
Invitations are how collaborators join projects in STAPLE. Project administrators send invitations that specify the role a user will have once they accept.
- On the main dashboard, you can view all of your pending invitations across projects and choose to accept or decline them.
- On a project dashboard, only project administrators can see the invitations they have sent for that specific project.
A contributor cannot be assigned tasks or added to teams until they have accepted their invitation. This system ensures that every collaborator’s involvement is explicit, documented, and consented to before work begins.
3.3.2.4 Tasks
Tasks break a project down into actionable steps and are the backbone of daily research activity in STAPLE.
- On the main dashboard, the Tasks page shows a consolidated view of all tasks assigned to you across every project, so nothing slips through the cracks.
- On a project dashboard, project administrators can view and manage all tasks within that project, while contributors see only the tasks assigned to them.
Within a project, you can:
- Create new tasks for yourself or others.
- Assign tasks to contributors or teams.
- Update task status (to-do, in progress, complete).
- Add labels, metadata, and logs to track progress.
This two-level view ensures that contributors can stay focused on their own responsibilities while project managers maintain oversight of the entire project’s workflow.
3.3.2.5 Notifications
Notifications keep you informed about project activity without needing to check each page manually. These alerts let you know when:
- You’ve been assigned a new task.
- A task you’re involved in has been updated, completed, or approved.
- You’ve received a project invitation.
On the main dashboard, notifications show updates from all of your projects in one place. On a project dashboard, notifications are filtered to that project only, helping you focus on what matters most in the current context. The Notifications page ensures you never miss important updates in collaborative projects.
3.3.2.6 Forms
Forms are structured templates for collecting metadata at the project or task level. They make sure essential details, such as ethics approvals, instrument calibration, dataset versions, or preregistration links, are captured consistently.
STAPLE includes a library of form templates, giving you a starting point if you’re not sure what metadata to collect. You can also design your own forms tailored to your project’s needs. Forms must be created before they can be used in a project, ensuring that the structure is in place before contributors start filling them out.
Once in use, forms become a powerful way to collect metadata directly within your workflow. You can:
- Fill out forms as part of project tasks.
- Assign forms to contributors or teams to ensure documentation responsibilities are shared.
- Reuse templates across multiple projects for consistency.
By embedding metadata capture directly into the research process, forms help projects meet transparency and reproducibility standards while reducing the burden of after-the-fact documentation.
3.3.2.7 Roles
Roles in STAPLE describe the kinds of contributions people make within a project. While they draw inspiration from frameworks like the CRediT taxonomy, they are not limited to authorship or publication contexts. Instead, roles provide a flexible way to document responsibilities and ensure that contributions are visible across the lifespan of a project.
In STAPLE, roles can be:
- Assigned to people → to show what responsibilities each contributor holds in a project.
- Assigned to tasks → to clarify what kind of contribution a task represents and how it fits into the project.
Roles provide a flexible system for understanding who did what and for standardizing contributions across projects. Role templates are avaliable to add to your account, which you can use across all projects. They must be created on the main dashboard before you can use them.
3.3.3 Project Level Options
3.3.3.2 Milestones
Milestones mark major points of progress within a project and help teams track deadlines and achievements. In STAPLE, milestones can also group related tasks together, providing a clear structure for managing phases of a project. Each milestone is tied to a timeline, and STAPLE automatically visualizes them in a Gantt chart, making it easier to see how tasks and deadlines align. This helps teams monitor progress, anticipate bottlenecks, and keep projects moving forward on schedule.
3.3.3.3 Notes
Notes provide a space for free-text documentation within a project. Unlike structured metadata captured through Forms, Notes allow contributors to record context, reminders, or reflections in their own words.
Notes can be:
- Private – visible only to the author.
- Shared with contributors – if shared by a project administrator, contributors can view them.
- Restricted to administrators – for communication only among project managers.
This flexibility makes Notes useful for everything from personal reminders to collaborative discussions among administrators.
3.3.3.4 Form Data
Form Data is the collected information from metadata Forms within a project. It provides a centralized view of all structured metadata entries—such as instrument details, ethics protocols, or dataset versions—that have been completed by contributors. Form Data can be reviewed, exported, and updated if errors have occurred.
3.3.3.5 Summary
The Summary page generates a shareable overview of the project. It consolidates contributors, tasks, roles, metadata, milestones, and outputs into one report. Project Summaries can be exported in both machine-readable formats (JSON) and human-readable interactive reports, making them useful for collaboration, archiving, and compliance with funder or journal requirements.
3.3.3.6 Settings
The Settings page allows administrators to configure project-level metadata. This includes details such as the project title, description, timeline, and high-level information about the project’s scope.