SOP: During the Award Period

Purpose

This SOP outlines procedures and responsibilities during the active funding period for projects hosted on the NF Data Portal.

Procedure

Data Submission and Annotation 

• The Awardee is responsible for uploading datasets to Synapse per timelines and formats established in the DSP.

• NF-OSI DCC will send Awardee monthly reminders to annotate uploaded data that has not yet been annotated. 

  • Note: Monthly reminders automatically stop after 120 days post-upload. 

  • The funder should be cc’ed in these emails. 

• The Awardee annotates all uploaded data according to the NF-OSI minimal metadata standards using cloud-based annotation software provided by NF-OSI DCC. This software will ensure that minimal metadata standards are enforced and that standardized terminology is used to describe data. 

Milestone Tracking and Reporting

• The Awardee regularly submits milestone progress reports to the Funder as scheduled in their contract. Milestone reports will include a summary of data uploaded and annotated. 

• Funder reviews milestone reports for adherence to project timelines and objectives.

• Issues or delays related to data are communicated immediately to NF-OSI DCC.

Updates to Data Sharing Plan (DSP)

• Any significant changes to the DSP (datasets, timeline, metadata) must be promptly reported to the funder. Only after receiving approval from the funder, the Awardee must submit updates to the DSP web form. 

• NF-OSI DCC reviews submitted DSP updates, ensuring accuracy and alignment with key data identification. NF-OSI DCC communicates with Funder if changes in DSP are not aligned with data sharing criteria. 

• NF-OSI DCC generates new DSP PDF and uploads into the Awardee’s Synapse project workspace. 

• In future: relevant changes are automatically made to Synapse project workspace. For now: changes are manually propagated as needed (for example, changing folder labels)

Updates to Grant and/or Embargo End Date 

• Funder should notify NF-OSI DCC of the new grant end-date and/or embargo end-date as soon as possible. 

• NF-OSI DCC is responsible for updating the DSP, portal pages, and project configuration. 

Additional Less Common Scenarios

Awardee Institution Change

If an Awardee moves to a new institution during an active award, should a new Synapse project be created, or should the existing project be maintained?

In most cases, the Awardee will continue using the same Synapse project. NF-OSI DCC will update the Awardee’s contact information and add the new institution. Additionally, members from the new institution may need to be added to the project. If a new grant DOI has been created, it will be associated with the existing project. This approach assumes that the project's research focus remains unchanged.

However, if the research focus has shifted significantly, creating a new Synapse project may be necessary. This is a subjective measurement and ultimately is the decision of the Funder. Another key consideration is whether the previous research topic will still be pursued.

• If the original research continues at the previous institution, it is advisable to create a second Synapse project to separately track contributions from both institutions.

• If no further data collection is expected for the original project, it may be more practical to retain the existing Synapse project and update its topic/title accordingly.