Data Use Agreements (DUA)          

• DUA’s are to be routed by the URA. The URA must review, negotiate, and endorse all agreements where data will be transferred by third-party entities to researchers at the University of Chicago and where data will be transferred to third-party entities from UChicago researchers.
• The SDE will work with the URA and the PI to meet the DUA’s contractual requirements.
• Researchers may contact the SDE prior to finalizing their DUAs so that the consultation process can begin to determine security, storage, and computation needs.
• It is important to note that the URA must first endorse contracts before accessing the SDE environments.

For further information data use agreements or URA, please visit the Data-Sharing Agreement website.

Grant Proposal Support

The RCC already provides substantive services for Grant Support and will be able to provide PIs assistance with grant preparation for research done in the SDE.  Additional information can be found on the RCC website.

Computational Scientist Consulting

The RCC scientific computing group provides one-on-one consulting and technical user support in the areas of scripting, code porting, optimization, parallelization and more.  The SDE is an integral component of RCC’s mission, and extends the same service to SDE users. View more information on RCC Computation Scientists.

Secure Data Enclave Operations

As part of the the Secure Research Data Strategy, the SDE was created to provide a University response on the management and storage of sensitive research data. The SDE is managed by the SDE Program Manager with oversight from the Director of the Research Computing Center and the Chief Technology Officer in IT Services. Additional services provided by RCC, ITS, URA, and the Office of Legal Counsel culminate the breadth of SDE operations.

Secure Rooms

Secure rooms with off-network computers are made available for contractual requirements that need such a provision in order to perform analysis.

Training

A crucial aspect of excellent service is to provide adequate training to help ensure faculty and staff are well equipped to begin working with the SDE.  Trainings will be made available on navigating the DUA process, data privacy in research, and working with sensitive research data in the SDE throughout the year.  The next planned training will be in the spring of 2021.

Primary Research Support

Researchers at the University of Chicago can generate their own data for research.  This generated data may not bound by contractual agreement, but can be bound by regulations if it contains sensitive information.  The SDE can be utilized to store and analyze primary sensitive research data. If there is a human subjects research component to the data, we can collaborate with the appropriate IRB on the data security requirements for your IRB protocol.