Data Contributor Checklist

We’ve put together this checklist for you as a resource to ensure you’ve completed all the necessary steps involved in contributing data to the portal. Detailed instructions and information can be found here—this checklist is just an extra tool to keep you on track.

Before data generation

• Register for a Synapse account
• If you’ll be uploading data, take the Synapse certification quiz
• You must be a certified user to upload data
• We also recommend that you add your ORCID credentials to your profile
• Submit a data sharing plan (DSP)
• This includes your anticipated data types and data access/licensing requirements, estimated number of samples, expected upload dates, and researcher contact information, as well as whether you’ll be submitting human data
• Submit a project detail intake form
• You must also submit your completed DSP along with this form (there will be a place to upload it)
• Find the project detail intake form here
• Visit your Synapse project*
• Check to make sure you can access your project, and let us know if others on your team need access too
• View your study on the NF Data Portal*
• Review and familiarize yourself with our documentation on data contribution

*When your study is registered, the NF-OSI will create a project and study page for you and notify you.

After data generation

• Upload data files to Synapse
• Annotate data files with metadata
• Add any additional information such as provenance, supplementary documentation, or wikis
• If required, submit a milestone to your funder

Before data release

Note: We will contact you before making data public. This typically happens well after the project start date—anywhere from several months to several years later.

• Ensure all files have proper data governance in place, including licensing and access controls (if any)
• If requested, mint a project DOI for permanent tracking and attribution purposes (DOIs are often requested by journals)
• Assistance with curation may be requested, such as adding any missing metadata or otherwise preparing data for discovery

After data release

• Data are released to the public