Data Sharing Services on PhysioNet

The new PhysioNet website is available at: https://physionet.org. We welcome your feedback.
If you would like to publish content on PhysioNet, please use our new site: https://alpha.physionet.org

PhysioNet offers special services to researchers who are required to develop and implement data sharing plans in accordance with the NIH Data Sharing Policy, and to other researchers who wish to make their data available via PhysioNet. This page outlines these services.

PhysioNetWorks: Protected data archives

By building a protected data archive using PhysioNet's services from the outset of your project, you can back up your data securely as you gather them. At the conclusion of your project, you can have a data set that is ready to be shared and that can stimulate and support further work on your research topic.

All data shared via PhysioNet must be de-identified (i.e., it must not be possible to associate data obtained from human subjects with any individual subjects). PhysioNet's free and open-source deid software may be useful for removing PHI from text files.

Once your data have been de-identified, they can be transmitted to a protected data archive that we will establish for you on a PhysioNet server (PhysioNetWorks). Data can remain protected until a date chosen by you (typically at the conclusion of your project, or at a milestone such as publication of your major findings). At that time, our expectation is that your data will be transferred to PhysioBank, the publicly accessible data archives of PhysioNet.

PhysioNet Services

You can create a PhysioNetWorks account for yourself (see PhysioNetWorks Quick Start at right), and you will need to do so in order to obtain any of the services described below.

Researchers who are allocated a protected data archive on PhysioNetWorks agree that they and any colleagues who share it will not use it to store PHI, or any material that they do not have permission to copy, and that they will release their data for posting in a public area of the PhysioNet web site within a reasonable period. NIH grant recipients who agree to these terms are routinely allocated protected storage; we review requests from other researchers and grant allocations for projects that are in line with PhysioNet's goals as space permits.

PhysioBank: Public data archives

When your data are ready to be shared with other researchers, they can be submitted for our review prior to posting them in PhysioBank, the web-accessible public data archives of PhysioNet. See the Guidelines for contributors to PhysioBank for details of the criteria we use while reviewing contributed data sets.

PhysioNet Services

If you are writing a grant application

Your grant application may require you to include a plan to make the data you collect in the course of your publicly funded research publicly available.

PhysioNet Services

Questions and Comments

If you would like help understanding, using, or downloading content, please see our Frequently Asked Questions.

If you have any comments, feedback, or particular questions regarding this page, please send them to the webmaster.

Comments and issues can also be raised on PhysioNet's GitHub page.

Updated Friday, 08-Mar-2019 22:48:07 CET

PhysioNet is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) under NIH grant number 2R01GM104987-09.