Access Policies
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Access policies in control who can view and interact with your collections. These policies form the foundation of Publisher's security model, ensuring your data reaches the right audience while maintaining appropriate access controls.
Publisher provides three distinct levels of access control, each designed for different sharing needs and security requirements.
with public access are available to anyone, including users who aren't logged in. This policy is ideal for openly available datasets, research findings meant for broad distribution, or resources that should be discoverable by search engines.
Registered access requires users to log in through before accessing collections. While still relatively permissive, this policy adds a layer of accountability by tracking who accesses your data.
It's particularly useful for:
Maintaining usage statistics
Understanding your user base
Meeting basic compliance requirements
Enabling user-specific features
Collections with a controlled access policy can only be accessed by a user if their email is listed within the access policy's allow list.
These policies differ from public and registered access in several important ways:
Created and managed by Publisher Admin
Limit access to specifically approved users
Allow multiple policies to exist simultaneously
When implementing controlled access, you can configure several important features:
Terms of Use enable you to present specific usage agreements that users must accept before accessing the data.
Access Requests allow potential users to submit formal requests for collection access, which administrators can review and approve. You can also maintain detailed "allow lists" of approved users, providing granular control over data access.
Navigate to the Access Policies dashboard through the left sidebar to manage your policies.
Each policy appears with its name, creation date, access type, and number of pending requests. For controlled access policies, hover over any entry to reveal edit and delete options.
When choosing an access policy, consider your data's sensitivity and sharing requirements. Public access maximizes visibility, while registered access enables basic tracking. For sensitive data, controlled access provides the most security but requires more active management.
Controlled access provides the most sophisticated level of security for sensitive or restricted data. Unlike the other policy types, controlled access policies are and can be created by Publisher administrators to meet specific security requirements.