1000 FUNCTIONAL CONNECTOMES PROJECT: Call For New Data Contributions
Dear colleagues,
We are writing to announce a new call for data contributions to the 1000 Functional
Connectomes Project. On December 11th, 2009, the project had its inaugural public
release of 1200+ resting state fMRI datasets (independently collected across 33) via
NITRC (http://www.nitrc.org/projects/fcon_1000/). In just under two months, the site has
had more than 2700 downloads. Already a number of new sites are in the process of
transferring data contributions to the project.
The project is currently accepting new contributions of resting state fMRI datasets.
Contributing data is a great way to foster the growing ethos of data-sharing in the
imaging community, and help to advance the science more rapidly. Please find below the
privacy policies of the 1000 Functional Connectomes Project – they ensure complete
anonymity and protection of privacy for data contributions to the website.
Additional information about the project is available at
http://www.nitrc.org/projects/fcon_1000/. Please e-mail [log in to unmask] with
inquiries.
Best,
Bharat Biswal and Mike Milham
Co-Founders
PRIVACY POLICIES
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1) Each contributor is responsible for confirming with their ethics committee or
institutional review board (IRB) that approval is granted or that an exemption from
having to obtain such approval has been recognized, for open distribution of the data.
2) The 1000 Connectomes Project data sharing effort is providing the research community
with open access to datasets contributed by labs around the world. Datasets provided to
the 1000 Connectomes Project are to be de-identified prior to deposition of the data with
the project (i.e., removal of any personal identifying information from header/support
files). Upon arrival, datasets are automatically organized and header files are replaced
with novel header files to guarantee that any identifying personal information within the
header or supporting files is removed. Prior to open-access sharing via web-based
repository, all datasets will be further de-identified and anonymized by the removal of
face information from the image to prevent any inappropriate reconstruction of the image
that could lead to identification of a participant. Further, each individual participant's
dataset will be assigned a randomized five-digit participant identifier, along with a site
identifier (two letters which map to the site providing the data). The relationship between
the anonymized code and the original subject ID will be destroyed so as to assure that the
dataset will be truly anonymized. For each dataset, demographic information provided via
web-archive will be limited to (when available): age (18 and up), gender (male, female)
and handedness. This information will serve to facilitate more careful characterization of
the data, without entailing risk of violation of confidentiality.
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