====== Introduction to the HORTUS Platform ======

===== What is HORTUS? =====
HORTUS is a digital research platform designed to support the full research lifecycle in Religious Studies and related disciplines.
It provides researchers with a shared online environment to discover resources, collaborate with peers, manage research data, and publish outcomes within a structured and community-oriented infrastructure.
HORTUS functions as a research collaboratory: a digital space where scholars can work together regardless of institutional affiliation or geographic location, using common tools, shared standards, and integrated services.
===== What HORTUS enables researchers to do =====
HORTUS brings together several key capabilities that are often scattered across multiple systems:
  * **Discover**: Browse and search research projects, datasets, publications, events, news, and experts relevant to Religious Studies.
  * **Collaborate**: Create or join research projects, manage contributors, share folders and working documents, and exchange through discussions and social features.
  * **Organise research work**: Use personal and project workspaces to structure files, folders, metadata, and draft materials before publication.
  * **Publish and disseminate**: Publish datasets, publications, and other research outputs with rich metadata, clear visibility rules, and links to external repositories when needed.
  * **Learn and train**: Access training materials and courses through the Training Centre, and reuse published resources for teaching and learning activities.
  * **Engage with the community**: Follow projects and resources, participate in discussions, share updates, and connect with other researchers and experts.

===== Who HORTUS is for =====
HORTUS is designed for a broad research community, including:
  * Researchers and academics
  * Project leaders and collaborators
  * Early-career researchers and students
  * Trainers and trainees
  * Data stewards and research support staff
  * Visitors exploring ongoing research activities

Some content is accessible to non-registered users, while additional features become available once you register and sign in.

===== Key concepts in HORTUS =====
To help you navigate the platform, it is useful to understand a few core concepts:
  * Projects: Institutional project pages that act as hubs for collaboration, documentation, resources, and team members.
  * Resources: Research outputs such as publications, datasets, images, or other digital objects, described with metadata and linked to projects.
  * Experts (currently labelled “People” in the interface): Researcher profiles that present expertise, affiliations, and collaboration signals.
  * Workspace: Your personal and project-based working environment for organising files, folders, metadata, and contributions.
  * Metadata: Structured descriptions that make resources findable, understandable, and reusable; HORTUS allows both standard and custom metadata definitions.

===== How this documentation is organised =====
The HORTUS Knowledge Base is organised to support different ways of learning and working:
  * Feature documentation: Explains individual platform features (Projects, Events, Resources, Experts, etc.).
  * Workflow guides: Show how multiple features work together to support real research scenarios.
  * Support and help: FAQs, documentation contexts, and guidance on reporting issues or requesting assistance.
You can browse the documentation by topic or follow guided workflows depending on your objectives.

===== A living platform, a living documentation =====
HORTUS is continuously evolving as new features are added and existing ones are improved.
This documentation is therefore a living resource, regularly updated to reflect the current state of the platform.

If you encounter unclear information, missing content, or have suggestions for improvement, please use the Support section to share your feedback.