You can get a tour of the IHEC Data Portal features by going to the Data Grid page, and clicking on "Click here for instructions". A step-by-step guide will walk you through the interface main features.
The complete IHEC Metadata specification document is available here.
The IHEC Data Portal displays experiments processed data, in the way it has been provided by members of IHEC, or by the community. A requirement is that this data should be free of sensitive or personally-identifiable information. The raw sequencing read files, (e.g. BAM and FASTQ files) are considered private/sensitive data, and therefore are stored at controlled access repositories. To access this data, you need to apply to the relevant Data Access Committee, using their form. More information on data application and policies for each consortium can be access by clicking on the "Policy" links of the "Track Hubs" panel, in the Data Grid page.