Key concepts at a glance
A plain-language primer on the words you will see across openJII: experiment, protocol, device, sensor, roles, and visibility.
A few words come up again and again in openJII. Here is what each one means, in plain language. Each concept links to a fuller page.
Experiment
An experiment is the main way you organize your work. It brings together your measurements, the people you work with, and the settings for a single study, usually one plant species or one research question.
Everything you collect belongs to an experiment. You can have as many as you need.
Protocol
A protocol is the set of instructions a device follows to take a measurement, the measurement steps, timing, and settings. openJII comes with ready-made protocols, and you can pick the one that fits your study.
Some protocol settings are adjustable within your experiment. Changing them only affects your experiment, never the original protocol.
Choosing and adjusting protocols →
Device vs Sensor
openJII makes a small but useful distinction:
Device
Hardware you operate by hand, one measurement at a time, guided by a protocol. The MultispeQ handheld is the main example. You use it with the mobile app in the field.
Sensor
Hardware that runs on its own and streams data continuously with little day-to-day input, such as a field sensor that reports through an Ambyte gateway.
In short: you take measurements with a device; a sensor keeps measuring on its own.
Roles
Within an experiment, each person has one of two roles:
- Admin — sets up and owns the experiment; can change its settings, manage members, and invite others.
- Member — contributes measurements and comments, typically the person out in the field with the mobile app.
Visibility and embargo
openJII is built around open data, so experiments are public by default. You can instead keep an experiment private for a while by setting an embargo, a date on which it becomes public automatically. The embargo can run up to about a year.
Sharing, visibility, and embargo →