ADDI Platform/Resources
Following the webinar hosted on January 28, 2024, we are pleased to provide a summary of the key points discussed along with resources offered to attendees:
During the webinar, attendees were introduced to the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative (ADDI) and its resources. The session highlighted the importance of collaboration and utilization of ADDI’s tools, particularly the AD Workbench and Workspaces, in advancing research in Alzheimer’s disease.
Key highlights included:
- Introduction to ADDI and its mission
- Overview of the AD Workbench and its functionalities
- Guidance on creating an account and accessing resources
- Explanation of Workspaces and their role in collaborative research
- Considerations for requesting a Workspace, including geographic regions and data sovereignty requirements
- Discussion on data processing agreements (DPAs) and data use agreements (DUAs)
- Tips for effective Workspace administration and collaboration
- Overview of resources available on AD Connect, including past webinars, learning series events, and tech help threads
- Proposal to create private groups for in-depth discussions and code sharing among collaborators
Attendees were encouraged to explore the resources provided, including:
- Creating an account on the ADDI portal
- Accessing tutorials and guidance articles
- Requesting a Workspace for collaborative research
- Engaging with the AD Connect user community forum for additional support and networking opportunities
Overall, the webinar served as a valuable platform for attendees to learn about ADDI’s resources and opportunities for collaboration in Alzheimer’s disease research. We look forward to further engagement and collaboration within the ADDI community.
A few points from ADDI:
- New users create a new account here: https://addi-portal.alzheimersdata.org/, for additional information about this process, please see this article for step-by-step guidance.
- For reference, here’s a link to an AD Workbench overview video.
- Researchers can request a Workspace here: https://addi-portal.alzheimersdata.org/request-workspace – please note that users will be asked to define a geographic region for their Workspace. For users based in Europe or for those that will be working with European collaborators, it may be useful to consider requesting a Workspace in a European-based hub. For example, collaborating in a European-based Workspace may address certain data sovereignty requirements, but we advise consultation with one’s data protection and/or legal teams on this subject. Please also consider the potential need for data processing agreements (DPAs) or data use agreements (DUAs) depending on the collaborative arrangement among the parties involved.
- One additional note about Workspaces – not every user requires their own Workspace. If a researcher is working collaboratively with a larger group, one of the researchers can request a Workspace and invite others to join that collaborative Workspace. More information about Workspace administration and a guide about adding other users/collaborators to a Workspace can be found here. When it comes time to upload files to the Workspace, please reference this article for additional guidance. Workspaces have a feature called an “airlock” which restricts who can export data or results from the Workspace, more information can be found here on export procedures.
- Several of the help guides/articles referenced above are available on our user community forum which is called AD Connect, which is accessible here: https://community.addi.ad-datainitiative.org/ If an AD Workbench account has been created, the same credentials can be used to login to AD Connect as well. AD Connect provides additional resources to help navigate the AD Workbench, a video repository that includes past Researcher Roundtables and Learning Series Events, in addition to threads offering Tech Help. ADDI can also offer to create a “Private Group” for the group of collaborators to start threads to support private conversations about the analyses that are planned or being performed, sharing links to repos where members of the group have code that has been developed, etc.