Managing Data Sharing in a Project

Sharing coral reef data is at the core of MERMAID’s mission—enabling faster, more informed conservation decisions. While your data belongs to you, MERMAID offers flexible sharing options to support collaboration, transparency, and appropriate data stewardship.

You can choose different data sharing policies for each survey method (e.g., private fish data and public benthic data), depending on your organization's needs and data sensitivity. These policies can be updated at any stage of the project–even after data has been submitted–but only users with an Admin role in the project. 

The policy you choose for each survey method determines how your data is accessed—whether through MERMAID Explore or via the MERMAID R package in R. Selecting Public or Public Summary policies increases visibility and potential impact, while the Private setting ensures that submitted data is visible only to your project team.

To access the data sharing policies:

1. Go to your project’s Data Sharing page under the ADMIN section in the left-hand sidebar.

2. Choose your preferred policy for each survey type (Benthic, Fish, and Bleaching).

Data Sharing Policies

MERMAID supports three levels of data sharing, from fully open access (Public) to restricted visibility (Private)—giving you control over how your data is accessed and viewed:

For more details about how each policy governs data access in MERMAID, see table below:

When you create a new project in MERMAID, all survey types (Benthic, Fish, and Bleaching) are set to the Public Summary data sharing policy by default. To make changes, go to the Data Sharing page in your project and select the appropriate policy for each survey type. 

How Others Access and View Your Data Based on Policy

Your selected policy determines how your data is accessed and viewed in both MERMAID Explore and via the MERMAID R package in R.