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’ N3C COVID-related scientific research data access.

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 and 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 institutional resources; it strictly grants NCATS permission to continue providing investigator access to existing data. By obtaining permissions, NCATS aims to facilitate uninterrupted research progress while maintaining N3C operations and oversight.

Therefore, institutions must sign an extension to allow continued data access.

Extending your agreement(s) through September 30, 2029 allows the research community to continue answering COVID-19 questions.

Please send your signed DTA, DUA, and LHBA 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 Institutional Deadlines

  • 12/31/2024 - Deadline to sign the DTA extension
  • 1/1/2025 - N3C COVID will only make available and accept new data from sites that 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 - Researchers will no longer be able to access data from a site that did not sign a renewed DTA. All previous data versions will be revoked.

Important Researcher Deadlines

  • 12/31/2024 - Deadline for institutions to sign the DUA. extension, helping researchers maintain N3C COVID data access.
  • 1/1/2025 - New data releases after this date will only include patients from sites that have signed the agreement extensions, the data included from those sites will remain the same, including patient records from 1/1/2018 and beyond.
  • 4/1/2025 - Researchers wishing to maintain access to any N3C COVID data after this date must have their institution sign the extension agreements. To respect expiring agreements for sites that do not renew their agreements, access to all data from these sites and all derived datasets will be revoked for all users by 4/1/2025. Any datasets or results derived from data releases prior to 1/1/2025 will be archived and must be recomputed using a newer data release.

FAQs

No. The agreements remain the same, other than changing the dates.

The new agreement extensions do not involve additional resources or commitments. They allow institutions to continue to access available data, and optionally transfer data for researcher use.

No. Data Contributors do not have to continue data transfers. The extension allows investigators to continue using data that was 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 with signed DTA Extensions. We suggest quarterly updates.

If you, as an institution, do not sign the DTA 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 N3C COVID data by 4/1/2025.

Because the DTA was limited to 5 years, ALL data use access will end 3/31/2025 for the sites who have not extended their DTA. While your workspace will continue to exist, it will eventually only access data inputs from institutions that signed the DTA Extension.

Assuming that you are covered by an updated DUA, any prior work will be unaffected. However, any results will need to be generated from data released after 12/31/2024. Starting 4/1/2025, 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.

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.

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 archived data access requests will be considered on an individual basis. Simply needing a larger sample size or more sites worth of data is not an acceptable reason to request access.

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.clinicalcohort.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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