DesignSafe User Guides

updated January 31, 2024

User Account Registration, Password Reset, and Reactivation
Any natural hazards researcher or practitioner that wants an environment to store, analyze, curate, publish, and discover data with a community of peers may register for an account. Request a user account, and then follow the instructions in the email you receive to complete setting up your account. You will then be able to log in to DesignSafe. A DesignSafe account is a TACC user account, so you will sometimes see emails from TACC and URLs that take you to the TACC domain tacc.utexas.edu.

To reset your password, go to https://accounts.tacc.utexas.edu/forgot_password, enter your username or email address that is associated with your user account, and you will receive an email with a password reset link.

If you receive an Authentication Failed error when logging in, and you are confident that you have entered the correct password for your account, then it is likely that you need to Reactivate Account due to your account being Deactivated due to more than 120 days having passed since you last logged in. To reactivate your account, log in at accounts.tacc.utexas.edu and then request an activation link via https://accounts.tacc.utexas.edu/activate. You will receive an email at the email address associated with your user account with instructions for account reactivation.

NAVIGATING THE USER GUIDE
Data Depot: The Data Depot section provides documentation on managing your data including various methods to transfer your data to DesignSafe, guidance for including DesignSafe in your NSF Data Management Plan, and a checklist for data curation when working with a NHERI Experimental Facility. There is extensive guidance for curating and publishing your datasets for reuse by others including working with protected/regulated/sensitive data.

Tools & Apps: This section contains user guides for how to utilize our many offerings in data analytics, GIS and mapping, visualization, and our Jupyter Hub interacting with the data you bring to DesignSafe or that you discover in our Published datasets.

Simulation Applications: We host a wide array of open source and licensed software applications commonly used in natural hazards research.

Use Cases: To help users fully embrace DesignSafe functionalities, we have developed a suite of Use Cases that demonstrate how DesignSafe is being used to advance natural hazards research. Practical products, examples, and scripts developed as part of these Use Cases are provided at the links below. The different simulation codes, tools, and DesignSafe resources used in each Use Case are also indicated.

Advanced Topics: This section of the user guide provides information for how to request an HPC allocation to gain access to TACC's high performance computing resources when your research needs larger scale computation than the our portal applications provide. For researchers who develop their own software tools, a guide to how to use our API to access your data and run applications is provided.