Contributing an Observation

Thank you in advance for contributing your observations to the NF Research Tools Database! By sharing your observations about a tool, you will help the NF research community better understand the tools that can support their research and contribute to the efficiency of knowledge discovery and scientific innovation in the field.

Please note: Contributed information on research tools and associated observations will be made publicly available in the NF Research Tools Database. All contributions should abide by the Synapse Code of Conduct and adhere to the resource submission rubric below. Acceptable observations for the database include general comments and reviews, usage instructions, depositor comments, issues, and any scientific observations noted from use. Observations that are crude, derogatory, or disparaging will not be accepted.

To submit an observation to the NF Research Tools Database, please complete the steps below and contact us at nf-osi@sagebionetworks.org with any questions:

1. Contact Us

Navigate to our help portal. Click “NF Research Tools Database”, then click “Submit a Research Tool Observation,” and complete the prompts to provide the following information about the observation(s) you would like to submit:

Which tool(s) are you submitting an observation for? Please provide the exact name of the tool and the RRID if available.
Will any of the observations submitted be referencing a publication(s)? If so, please provide the DOI or PubMed ID for each publication.
Do you have a Synapse user name?
- If so, please provide it.
- If not, please visit http://www.synapse.org to register.

Click “Send” to submit this information. We will respond with any follow-up questions. We will also send either one or two spreadsheets (depending on if you have contributed to the database before), called “manifests,” to be filled out by you, the contributor. Please refer to Step 2 below for additional details on completing these manifests.

2. Complete Observations Manifests

We will provide Google spreadsheet templates (“manifests”) that will allow you to provide information about your observations. An Observation manifest will absolutely be included, but an accompanying Investigator manifest will only be included if you have not previously contributed to the database.

Please note: You may download the manifest as an excel file (File > Download > Microsoft Excel), but we have not extensively tested functionality in Excel. If you encounter any issues filling in the manifest in Excel, please contact us at nf-osi@sagebionetworks.org

Complete the manifests, taking into consideration the following:

The Observation manifest is a spreadsheet that collects information about the observation you would like to contribute and the Investigator manifest collects basic information about you, the contributor. Each row in the manifest equates to one observation, and the columns are attributes, or information collected about each observation. To see a brief description of each attribute within a manifest, or column, hover your mouse over the column name in the spreadsheet.

Note on columns that end in “_id”: Columns such as Resource_id, Investigator_id, are unique values (UUIDs) that indicate a unique entry in the database. You do not need to fill in columns that end in “_id.”

The information provided in each manifest must pass validation in a program called “Schematic” (to be performed by Sage following manifest submission). To ensure successful validation by Schematic, the information provided should adhere to the following standards outlined in each manifest:
- Many of the columns have controlled values, thus, you will only be able to choose from the given values. These columns will have dropdown menus listing the terms you may choose from. If a list of valid values is provided in the manifest as a drop down menu, only those exact terms can be included. If you do not see a term that fits your submission, please contact us by email to let us know that you would like a new term added.
- Multiple values can be provided by using a comma to separate them. If more than one value is provided for a single attribute field, then the terms must be separated by commas.
- Standards are followed based on the attribute descriptions (e.g. a reliability rating is given a number in the range of 1-5).

3. Submit Manifests

Prior to submission, perform a QC check to ensure that the information you have provided in each manifest adheres to the following resource submission rubric:

Observation Submission Requirement	Additional Information
All manifests are free of any protected health information (PHI)	No PHI has been included in any information in any completed manifest(s). Any contributed information has been provided in accordance with the regulations of local jurisdictions in order to protect the privacy of human subjects.
All manifests that the contributor is able to complete have been completed, depending on the type of resource(s) to be contributed	The manifests to be completed will vary depending on the information that the contributor has provided in their initial correspondence to Sage. We will send you all of the necessary manifests you will need to complete depending on the information you provide. PLEASE NOTE: If both the Observation and the Investigator manifests have been provided to the contributor, both manifests should be completed. If only the Observation manifest has been provided to the contributor, then only the Observations manifest should be completed.
Each manifest includes information for all of the required attributes	Information has been provided for all required attributes, highlighted in blue in each manifest.
Each manifest is as complete as possible	The contributor has provided as much information as possible, including information for non-required attributes.
Each observation has a unique identifier	Each row in the Observation manifest has a unique Observation_id.
Unique identifiers for resources and investigators align across the Observation manifest	PLEASE NOTE: The Resource_id in the Observation manifest is the same for every observation that references the same tool. Therefore, Resource_ids are different for each observation that references a different tool. The Investigator_id in the Observation manifest is the same for every observation made by the same person. The Investigator_id in the Observation manifest is unique for the person submitting the observation. Therefore, if one person is submitting multiple observations, the Investigator_id will be a uuid, but will be the same for each observation in the manifest submitted by that person.
Unique identifiers align across each manifest	If both the Observation and Investigator manifests are provided, the identifiers match up correctly across the manifests for each investigator (e.g. Investigator_id in the Investigator manifest matches the Investigator_id in the Observation manifest). Please contact us if you have any questions about this.
Each manifest includes information in English	The information has been provided in English, which is the language of the database. If submitting information in another language we will try to help translate into English, but we cannot promise that we will be able to do this.
Observations are provided in complete sentences	Information in the Observation Text column of the Observations manifest has been provided using complete sentences with proper grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.
Each manifest includes information that is respectful	Information has been provided that is respectful in content and presentation (e.g. no derogatory or disparaging content).

Send us back the completed manifests as a Google doc, Excel doc, or CSV export. We will be in contact with any questions and appreciate your contribution!

Video Guide

A short video describing this process can be found here.

Questions? Need Help?

Please feel free to contact us at nf-osi@sagebionetworks.org or by using the “Need more help?” button in the corner of this page.

How to Contribute an Observation