COVID-19 Data Transfer Agreement (DTA) and Data Use Agreement (DUA) Extensions


COVID Data Transfer Agreement (DTA) Extension (PDF - 139KB). - For organizations to sign to continue contributing COVID-19-related data to N3C.

COVID Data Use Agreement (DUA) Extension (PDF - 139KB). - For organizations to sign to allow their researchers’ continued access to COVID-19 data in N3C.

COVID Linkage Honest Broker Agreement (LHBA) Extension (PDF - 200KB) - For organizations to sign to continue to allow linkages, and deduplication of COVID-19 data in N3C.


N3C COVID Enclave Extension.

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) will facilitate the research communities’ continued access to N3C COVID-related data for scientific research.

The 3 original agreements - Data Transfer Agreement, (DTA), Data Use Agreement, (DUA), and the Linkage Honest Broker Agreement (LHBA) - were limited for a period of 5 years. These agreements will begin expiring in 2025. NCATS seeks to extend data access with a new expiration date of September 30, 2029.

This request is to extend the agreements via amendment with no other changes to their terms. Signing the extension amendments requires no new resources from institutions; it is strictly granting NCATS permission to continue investigators’ access to the existing data. By obtaining permissions, NCATS aims to facilitate uninterrupted research progress while maintaining N3C operations and oversight.

It is, therefore, necessary for institutions to sign an extension to allow continued access to the data.

  • Data Transfer Agreements - All institutions that wish to continue providing COVID-19 data to N3C for the purposes of research must sign the COVID Data Transfer Agreement Extension (DTA) Amendment.
  • Data Use Agreements - All individuals that wish to continue conducting COVID-19 research using N3C must have their parent organization sign the COVID Data Use Agreement Extension (DUA) Amendment.- All Data
  • Linkage Honest Broker Agreements - All institutions that wish to continue to allow deduplication and linkages to COVID-19 data to N3C for the purposes of research must sign the COVID Data Linkage Honest Broker Agreement (LHBA) Extension Amendment.

Extending your agreement(s) allows the research community to continue answering COVID questions. With the updated DUA, DTA, and LIHBA access will be extended through Sept. 30, 2029.

Signed Data Transfer and Data Use Agreements should be sent to Chris Dillon at ncatspartnerships@mail.nih.gov, NCATS Office of Strategic Alliances. All other questions can be sent to NCATS_N3C@nih.gov.

Important Dates for Institutions

  • 12/31/2024 - The extension DTA must be signed by 12/31/2024.
  • 1/1/2025 - Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, N3C COVID will only make available and accept new data from sites that have signed the extension DTA. Sites that wish to continue to allow access to their data beyond 4/1/2025 must sign the new DTA.
  • 4/1/2025 - All access to data from a site that does not sign a renewed DTA, including access to previous versions of data, will be revoked on 4/1/2025.

Important Dates for Researchers

  • 12/31/2024 - Researchers wishing to maintain access to any N3C COVID data after Dec. 31, 2024 must have their institution sign the extension DUA.
  • 4/1/2025 - In order to respect expiring agreements for sites that do not renew their DTA, access to all data from these sites and all derived datasets will be revoked for all users by 4/1/2025.
  • 12/31/2024 - This means that any datasets or results derived from data releases prior to 12/31/2024 will be archived, and must be recomputed using a newer data release. While new data releases will only include patients from sites that have signed the DTA extension, the data included from those sites will remain the same, including patient records from 1/1/2018 and beyond.

FAQs

No, there are no new requirements. The agreements remain the same, other than changes to the dates.

The new agreement extensions require no new resources. They grant permission for institutions to continue to access available data, and optionally transfer data and for researchers to.

No. Data Contributors do not have to continue data transfers; however, the extension allows investigators to continue to use data already transferred. N3C will continue to make available the latest data from a site until it is updated by the site.

Yes, N3C will continue to accept new data from sites that have signed DTA extensions with a suggested pace of quarterly updates.

If you, as an institution, do not sign the Data Transfer Agreement Extension, existing research studies will lose access to your data in early 2025. If you do not sign the Data Use Agreement extension, your investigators will lose access to the N3C COVID data.

Because the DTA was limited to 5 years, access to ALL of that data will end 4/1/2025. While your workspace will continue to exist, it will eventually only have access to data inputs from institutions that have signed the extension DTA.

Assuming that you are covered by an updated DUA, any prior work, code, and results approved for export will be unaffected. However any new results will need to be generated from data released after 12/31/2024.

No, the new agreements authorize access to the exact same data as before from each site. Data dating back to 2018 will be available, just not necessarily from as many sites.

We recognize that there may be valid scientific reasons to view archival data, e.g. revision or reproductions requested due to ongoing peer review. While we strongly encourage researchers to avoid dependence on older data, specific requests for access to archived data will be considered on an individual basis. Simply needing a larger sample size or more sites worth of data is not an acceptable reason for a request.

To Cite the N3C: "The analyses described in this [publication/report/presentation] were conducted with data or tools accessed through the NCATS N3C Data Enclave https://covid.cd2h.org and N3C Attribution & Publication Policy v 1.2-2020-08-25b supported by NCATS Contract No. 75N95023D00001 and [insert additional funding agencies or sources and reference numbers as declared by the contributors in their form response above]. This research was possible because of the patients whose information is included within the data and the organizations (https://ncats.nih.gov/n3c/resources/data-contribution/data-transfer-agreement-signatories) and scientists who have contributed to the on-going development of this community resource [https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocaa196]."

For publication submission information, please see the Publication Review Page

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