Join the community of TCIA data publishers!
The following information describes the process for submitting new imaging datasets to The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA). If you have utilized existing TCIA data and wish to publish your analyses you can find instructions for doing that here.
Requesting permission to publish a new dataset
The value of TCIA increases as we receive new data sharing proposals from the research community. Researchers with the following objectives are encouraged to submit an application to publish their data:
- How important is this data set to facilitating research reproducibility in this topic area?
- Does this dataset address a data gap for critical current research for a clinical need?
- Is this a novel/unique dataset compared to what’s already in TCIA?
- Is the dataset of a sufficient size/scale to support scientific conclusions or hypothesis development?
- Does the dataset contain sufficient supporting data and documentation?
- If the dataset consists of an analysis of image based data, is it based on a biological hypothesis or other proposed discovery about the patho-physiological basis of cancer?
There is no fee for sharing your data through TCIA except in rare circumstances where proposals are extremely large. TCIA is funded by the National Cancer Institute, therefore all applications must have relevance to cancer research. Applications are reviewed monthly by the TCIA Advisory Group to assess their utility to the TCIA user community. Preference is given to data sets which can be fully public and do not require any application process or data use agreements. Proposals which contain supporting non-image data (e.g. patient outcomes, training classifiers/labels, tumor segmentations) are highly preferred to those which lack these characteristics.
Please note that, if your proposal is approved, TCIA staff will help submitters perform extensive de-identification before the data leaves your site. Please do not de-identify your data before contacting us. In most cases, attempts to do so end up removing important information that will complicate downstream re-use.
It is also important to note that it usually takes a few months to complete the submission process for new datasets as we are perpetually working through a steady queue of incoming data submissions from sites around the world. Submission times vary greatly depending on how large the dataset is, how well the data are organized and what your availability is to work with us on your submission. In some circumstances we can adjust priorities to accommodate more aggressive deadlines, but this is not usually possible so we highly encourage researchers to plan ahead and start the data publication process well before you’re trying to publish a paper about it!
Request to Publish New Dataset with TCIA
If you are unable to submit an application using the link above, you can use this PDF form to submit your application. The PDF includes directions for submitting the completed document.
Submission process overview
Once we have determined your data set is an appropriate fit for the archive we will initiate the submission process. A TCIA submission team will be assigned to provide all the required tools and guidance for sending your data. Our TCIA de-identification and curation process documentation provides extensive details about the process, but the major steps include:
- We will help you perform an initial de-identification of your data before it leaves your site. Please do not de-identify your data before contacting us.
- We will review your submitted data to ensure the data are fully de-identified and the content of the data aligns with your submission proposal. TCIA reserves the right to not publish a dataset if the submitter does not provide all data described in their proposal form.
- We will work with you to create a dataset summary page to inform users how your data might be of use to them. Please review our guidance on auxiliary information we like to provide to the user community where available.
- We will publish the final data set, provide you with a citation and digital object identifier (DOI) for your dataset, and announce its availability on our mailing list and social media channels.
Track your data’s usage
After your dataset is available on TCIA you can view our Data Usage Statistics page to find out how often users search or download your data. You can also use your dataset’s Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to track citations.
Getting credit for data sharing
New journals dedicated to describing data sets are beginning to gain in popularity. These can be used to publish detailed descriptions of your TCIA data to gain academic credit (publication/citations) for your efforts in addition to the novel scientific findings you might publish in traditional journals. Below is a list of data journals which recognize TCIA as a Recommended Repository.
In addition to publishing new TCIA datasets we encourage the community to publish analyses derived from existing TCIA datasets. Examples (see previously uploaded analysis datasets) include image labels, annotations, organ/tumor segmentations, and radiomic/pathomic features.
Submitting a request to publish analysis results
Requests to share analysis results on TCIA can be submitted by filling out this application form. Proposals will be reviewed on a monthly basis by the TCIA Advisory Group using the following criteria:
- How will other researchers benefit if we add your data to TCIA?
- What scientific criteria was used to determine the methodology of segmentation/annotation/features?
- What is the biological relevance of segmentations/annotations/features?
TCIA highly recommends submissions of imaging and image-derived data (such as annotations and image analysis results) in DICOM format which preserves crucial metadata, for the following reasons:
- Using DICOM enables you to include key metadata necessary for easy re-use by others. The inclusion of metadata also limits variability due to different image processing tools. Failure to use DICOM data during submission might also lead to further inconsistencies during downstream usage of data.
- Popular open-source tools such as 3D Slicer and OHIF viewer (Open Health Imaging Foundation) support DICOM for annotations and segmentations.
- Allows your data to be searchable on the TCIA Radiology Portal and through our API.
- DICOM collections become available on NCI Imaging Data Commons, a publicly available cloud-based resource, providing greater visibility.
Conversion to DICOM SEG from NIfTI or NRRD formats can be done using publicly available, open-source tools (https://github.com/QIICR/dcmqi https://github.com/herrmannlab/highdicom)
If accepted, your proposal will be prioritized and assigned to one of our curation teams who will assist you through the submission process. Your data will be published with a citation and corresponding digital object identifier (DOI) which can be cited in publications. To help other users find your dataset on TCIA entries will be added on the Collection pages of any TCIA dataset your analyses utilized, and also to our Analysis Results directory page.
Request to Share Analysis Results with TCIA
If you are unable to submit an application using the link above, you can use this PDF form to submit your application. The PDF includes directions for submitting the completed document.
Getting credit for data sharing
New journals dedicated to describing data sets are beginning to gain in popularity. These can be used to publish detailed descriptions of your TCIA data to gain academic credit (publication/citations) for your efforts in addition to the novel scientific findings you might publish in traditional journals. Below is a list of data journals which recognize TCIA as a Recommended Repository.