Sharing data

You can grant collaborators, both at the University of Iowa and elsewhere, access to specific folders of your data by creating a Guest Collection. This is helpful for allowing a collaborator to transfer data in or out of the folder or to collaboratively work with the data.

Please note that sharing data via a Guest Collection is available for select storage services accessible via the uiowadata#data collection.

Storage serviceSharable via a Guest Collection
Dedicated Large Scale Storage sharesYes
Shared Large Scale Storage sharesYes
Your HPC home directoryNo
The NFS scratch filesystemNo
The BeeGFS scratch filesystemNo

How to create a Guest Collection and grant access to a collaborator

  1. Log in with your HawkID
    Visit https://app.globus.org/file-manager. Select "University of Iowa" from the drop-down list of organizations and then click Continue. This will redirect you to the University of Iowa login page where you can log in with your HawkID.
    Login to use Globus Web App with a red rectangle around the organization search box and continue button

  2. Connect to your data collection
    You should now be on the File Manager tab in Globus.
    A default, empty File Manager tab in Globus

    In the "Collection" field, search for "uiowadata#data".  Globus will list collections with matching names. Click on "uiowadata#data", the base collection for University of Iowa endpoints.


    Click the "Path" field and change it to your desired directory. Please refer to this list of paths for storage services available via Globus.
    Hit Enter/Return on your keyboard to connect to the path you have provided. Globus should now show the contents of your storage location.
    Globus File Manager with the Path field filled in and contents listed

  3. Create a Guest Collection to share your folder
    Navigate as needed through your storage location so that you can see the folder you would like to share.
    Select the folder to share by clicking the checkbox to the left of the folder name. You may need to move your mouse pointer over the folder name to see the checkbox.
    With the folder selected, click "Share" in the command panel on the right side of the page.


    You should now be on the "Collections" tab for the uiowadata#data collection. Click "Add Guest Collection".


    Fill out the Create new Guest Collection form and then click "Create Collection".
    Note: The display name and description that you provide will be visible to all Globus users.



  4. Configure who can access this Guest Collection/folder
    You should now be on the "Permissions" tab for your new Guest Collection.
    To grant a collaborator access, click "Add Permissions - Share With".


    By default, the Path field will be "/". Leave this to share all of the contents of the folder you selected when creating this guest collection, or click "Browse" to select a sub-directory.

    From the "Share With" list, select how your data should be shared. For most cases, we recommend "user - share with specific individuals". For information about how to create and manage groups, please refer to How to Manage Globus Groups.

    In the "Username or Email" field, type the name, Globus ID, or email of a person you want to share the data with. Globus will list matches as you type; click on the desired match or click "Add" if there are no matching results.

    Select whether you would like to notify the person via email that the Guest Collection has been shared with them, and optionally provide a custom message. The email will automatically include a link for the collaborator to access the folder.

    In the "Permissions" list, the "read" permission is selected by default. This allows everyone that you grant a permission to be able to view the data. Check the box for "write" if the person should be able to edit/delete the data you are sharing with them.

    Click "Add Permission" to finish creating the permission.


    A message will display confirming that the permission was created. To create a permission for another collaborator, click "Add another Permission". Otherwise, click "Done" to return to the permissions list for your Guest Collection.