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Data Portal

See the Data Management section for full information on the BEST-BSIERP data management strategy and guidelines. You can contact Tom van Pelt with general questions. For specific questions on data portal contents, please contact Ken Coyle or Rob Cermak.

Data Sharing

The data policy that all BEST-BSIERP PIs agreed to stipulates that you submit your data and accompanying metadata to the data managers within one year of collection. You can view the full text of the policy here.

But we want to re-emphasize the intent of centralizing data and making it accessible to other BEST-BSIERP participants. The intent is to allow colleagues to learn more about other participants’ data, to evaluate the data and begin thinking about how the data could be collaboratively used.

However, if you move beyond that stage and want to actually use other investigators' data for any publication, you must have explicit written permission from the investigator who collected the data prior to circulation of draft manuscripts or results that include the data. And that permission should be requested at an early stage in your analysis, to give your colleagues every opportunity for collaboration and participation in the analysis and publication process.

We want all BEST-BSIERP participants to feel comfortable sharing their data per the data policy. We see this as a critical factor in our mutual goal of achieving integration across project components. The BEST and BSIERP data managers are ready to support you and make this process as painless as possible.

If for any reason you are not comfortable with the data policy, or if you have suggestions to improve the data management support, please raise the issue with members of the Science Advisory Board, the Data Manager, or the Program Manager. We will get out of this project only what we are all willing to put into it.

Posted May 26, 2009