Mbirn: BIRN Data Sharing Statement

BIRN Data Sharing Policy

The BIRN has been created to maximize the return on the public investment in biomedical research by providing a distributed electronic environment that facilitates and promotes large scale sharing of scientific data. BIRN data sharing policies are designed to facilitate access to as much data as possible as freely as possible, while safeguarding human subject data and ensuring proper use and attribution of intellectual property. BIRN Data Sharing policies and procedures comply with Federal, State and local regulations.

Each investigator, and his/her sponsoring institution, that submits, hosts or processes BIRN data will use best practices for data confidentiality and security that are consistent with Federal and other applicable standards. This includes explicit approval from originating institution’s Institutional Review Board and/or Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee for the data collection and sharing with the scientific community. Technical and administrative safeguards will be applied to all person-identifiable BIRN data, regardless of whether that data meets formal criteria as Protected Health Information. Data submitted to the BIRN include sufficient information describing the source of the data such that other researchers can accurately attribute these sources for subsequent research and publications. Data made available to the scientific community, cannot be reclassified later as private data or expunged from the BIRN.

Respectfully submitted,

Randy Gollub, Chair