Quick Start Guide
Video Tutorial
1. Registering an Account

An introduction to the BOLD Student Data Portal website. This video provides an overview of the system and describes how to register and create a course.
2. Submitting Data

This video follows the submission of a DNA barcode record from the specimen data all the way to the sequence. It focuses on the student interface, but it allows instructors to follow the steps students will need to undertake in order to create their records.
3. Overseeing a course

This video provides an overview of the tools available to instructors to monitor student work and participation. It also describes the steps needed in validating and approving student-generated data for publication on BOLD and GenBank.
 

Using BOLD-IDS to Submit Identification Requests for Low Quality Sequence Data

If you were unable to assemble a contig using the BOLD-SDP Sequence Editor, you may nevertheless use the BOLD Identification System (BOLD-IDS) to determine the possible identity of the specimen/sample from which your sequence data were generated. Follow the steps below to submit identification requests through BOLD-SDP.
a. Navigate to the Main Student Console page of BOLD-SDP.
b. In the right sidebar of the Main Console page, click the <View Data> icon.

c. On the Record List page for your class, locate the row for the specimen/sample that is linked to sequence that you plan to submit to BOLD-IDS. Then click the Process ID link for the specimen/sample to open its sequence page in a new window.

d. In the SEQUENCING RUNS pane of the Sequence page, use your mouse to check the boxes that appear next to each of your trace files and click the <View Trace Files> button.

e. Your trace files are now displayed in the Trace Viewer page along with their quality statistics (please be advised quality statistics are not computed for trace files that are designated as failed). Click the <View Sequence> button that appears beneath the window of the trace file with the higher mean quality score.

f. The text sequence is extracted from your trace file and displayed in a new window. Ambiguous base calls are represented by n’s. Highlight and copy the text sequence that appears in this window. Remember that the reverse trace file contains the nucleotide sequence of the antisense strand of your COI amplicon. For reverse trace files, BOLD-SDP extracts the text sequence and displays its reverse complement in the sequence window.

g. To submit your request, navigate to the home page of BOLD-SDP and click the
<Identification> menu item that appears in the main toolbar.

h. Paste the text sequence that you copied into the text box on the Identification Request page.

i. From within the text box, highlight and delete ambiguous base calls (n's) on the 5' end of the sequence.

J. Next, highlight and delete ambiguous base calls (n's) on the 3' end of the sequence. Then click the <Submit> button to submit your identification request to BOLD-IDS.

k. A window containing the search results will open. Refer to Step 6 above for an explanation of the information displayed on this page. Because you submitted sequence data from only a single sequencing reaction, BOLD-IDS may be unable to return a conclusive species level match for your identification request.