How to Use

After it is determined who will be the Project Owner (see ‘Types of REEFhabilitation Portal Users’ section for more details), the next step is to create an account on the Portal.

• Go to https://reefhabilitation.org/
• Click “Create an Account” in the blue banner at the top right of the REEFhabilitation Portal homepage.
• Fill out the form with your user name and password, your name, email, and organization.
• Agree to the REEFhabilitation Portal Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.  
• Click “Sign Up.”

Users will receive a confirmation email that an account has been created.

After a Project Owner has created an account, they can log into their account by clicking the “Login” button in the blue banner at the top right of the REEFhabilitation Portal homepage. After logging in, they will be taken to their personal Dashboard, which displays information and access to:

1. The restoration projects the user has created and owns.
2. The nursery and restoration sites within those projects.
3. The nursery, outplant event, and monitoring data (called ‘Events’) posted to those projects.
4. Any new data submissions that are still pending review.

Users can also access their Profile by clicking on the “Profile” button in the blue banner on the top of the REEFhabilitation homepage. This allows you to edit your account details or change your password.

In order to use the REEFhabilitation Portal, Project Owners must first create a Project. A Project encompasses the overall coral reef restoration effort, including nurseries, outplanting events, and restoration sites. Note that all Projects submitted to the REEFhabilitation Portal can be viewed on the ‘Projects‘ tab located from the main webpage.

Within a project, Nursery Sites and Restoration Sites must then be added. A site is a specific location within the restoration project where users are conducting activities. There are two types of sites:

• Nursery Sites – field-based (in-water) and land-based (on-land) coral nurseries, where coral colonies are propagated for restoration purposes.
• Restoration Sites – natural reefs where corals are outplanted and monitored.

All monitoring data are uploaded to specific Sites the REEFhabilitation Portal. When created, Sites are assigned a number, which can then be used by citizen scientist tourists to easily locate and submit data to the site.

For nursery sites, users can upload nursery monitoring data. For restoration sites, users can upload data from an outplant event or from restoration site monitoring. 

A Project represents the overall coral reef restoration effort, including nurseries, outplanting events, and restoration sites. Within a project, the project owner creates one or more nursery or restoration sites, under which the Project Owner and Citizen Scientists can upload, analyze, and visualize restoration data.

Adding a New Project

• Sign into your REEFhabilitation Portal account, and click the Dashboard button.
• Under the “Projects and Sites” section, click the “Add a Project” button.
• Fill in the requested information about the project, and click the “Create Project” button.

Editing a Project

• Sign into your REEFhabilitation Portal account, and use the Dashboard link.
• Locate and select the Project in the Dashboard under the “Projects and Sites” section.
• Click the blue “Edit Project” button above the “Project Details” section on the top right.
• Edit the field in the project form and click “Save Changes.”

Note: Coral species are selected at the project level, and sites within the project will have their coral selections limited to those selected in the project. To add or remove coral species for a site, edit the project that corresponds to the Site.

A site is a specific location within the restoration project where users are conducting activities. Sites are added to specific projects that have already been created by a REEFhabilitation Portal project owner. A project can include multiple nursery or restoration sites.

Adding a New Site

• Sign into your REEFhabilitation Portal account, and click the Dashboard button.
• Select the project under the “Projects and Sites” section.
• On the project page, scroll down and click the “Add a Site to This Project” button.
• Fill in the requested information about the site, selecting either “Nursery Site” or “Restoration Site” in the “Site Type” section.
• Click “Add This Site to the Project” button at the bottom of the form.

Editing a Site

• Sign into your REEFhabilitation Portal account, and click the Dashboard button.
• Under “Projects and Sites”, find the project and select the name of site listed in the table under the project.
• Click the blue “Edit Site” button above the “Site Details” section on the top right of the page.
• Edit the field in the site form and click “Save Changes”

Note: Available coral species for a site are selected at the project level. To add or remove coral species, edit the project. See “How to Create or Edit a Project” for instructions on editing a project. 

Restoration data is added to the REEFhabilitation Portal database at the site level (for both nursery and restoration sites). There are three types of data that can be submitted to the REEFhabilitation Portal: 

• Nursery Observation data includes data collected about corals within the nursery. Nursery observation data can only be added to a Nursery Site.
• Outplant Event data includes data collected on the date that corals are outplanted onto a Restoration Site. Outplant event data can only be added to a restoration site. This data does not include monitoring observations (see below).
• Monitoring Observation data includes data collected during routine monitoring of coral reef restoration projects. Monitoring data can only be added to a restoration site.

Data Contributors

Restoration data can be added by both Project Owners and Citizen Scientist Divers.

Citizen Scientists can add restoration data with the following instructions:

• Go to the home page of the REEFhabilitation Portal.
• Scroll down to the “Divers” section of the site and the box “Add New Site Data”.
• Enter the site number and click “Add”. This will take you to the site.
  • If you do not know the site number, you can find project site on the Projects and Sites map and follow it to the site page.
• On the site page, look for the “Site Activity” listing and the “Add” buttons under it. Click one to add the appropriate type of data.
• Fill out the information and click the save button at the bottom of the form.
• Data submitted by citizen scientists will become visible on the site after it has been reviewed and approved by the Project Owner.

Project Owners can also manually enter data to project sites they manage, following the same process.

Project Owners are able to manage data submitted to their sites by Citizen Scientist contributors, including viewing, editing, approving, or rejecting data. To do this:

• Sign into your REEFhabilitation Portal account, and click the “Dashboard” button.
• Under “Projects and Sites” select a site within one of your projects.
• On the site page in the “Site Activity” section, look for submissions listed with a “Pending Review” yellow notification in the “Status” column. This list shows all data submissions to that site and their review status.
• Click the yellow “Review” button, which will take you to the data form.
• Review the data form for any obvious errors. You can remove or edit information as needed.
• If it looks good, change the “Review / Approval Status” to “Approve” in order to submit the data to your site and include it in your visualizations. The submitted data will now be visible on the site page.
• You can also choose to “Reject” the data. This will allow you to keep the submission, but the data will not be included in any analysis or visualizations.
• Finally, you can keep the submission as “Pending Review” if the submission needs more work or review.

On a Site page, the Portal visualizes the submitted data for that site. On a Project page, the Portal visualizes the combined data for all sites in that project. The visualizations can be filtered by a date range and the period over which the data is visualized (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually).

Site and Project pages also have a “Download Data” button on the right side of the page, so data may be downloaded as .CSV files for offline analysis on your own.

We welcome your feedback to make the Portal easier to navigate and to use. At the bottom of each page, look for the “Contact Us / Feedback” link to send us an email.

You can also send an email directly to reefhabilitation@tnc.org.