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BIP | internal

Welcome to Bioinformatics and Big Data Science Platform

§ 1 Tasks and Services
    The BIP staff will perform the following tasks:
    1. Creating the bylaws of the platform, the BIP charter, and the user charter.
    2. Leading day-to-day operations of the platform, including:
      1. communication with users
      2. operation and development of bioinformatics pipelines
      3. review of collaborative project proposals
      4. integration of bioinformatic and medical data into a centralized database, in
      5. collaboration with the Section of Medical Informatics at UKSH.
    The BIP will provide the following services to research and medical groups on campus:
    1. Access and usage of the IT infrastructure:
      1. Access to storage space
      2. Access to computing resources
    2. Scientific support:
      1. Service for data analysis using BIP bioinformatics pipelines
      2. Project design, development, and collaboration
    3. Training:
      1. Systematic integration of bioinformatics and medical data into a centralized database, such as the currently developed MeDIC platform.
§ 2 Management
  1. The scientific management of the BIP ("Project Committee") is responsible for:
    1. Reviewing and approving/rejecting user applications for computational resources and pipeline execution.
    2. Assigning the appropriate platform scientist to oversee pipeline execution.
    3. Providing additional scientific expertise from the core expertise group as needed.
  2. The board of directors of the Institute hosting the BIP (IKMB)
    1. legally supervises the employees of the service facility
    2. responsible for compliance with health and environmental regulations
§ 3 Definition of Users and prioritization
  1. The BIP service is aimed at all institutions, working groups and doctoral candidates participating in the CCGA, as well as at external project partners.
  2. All orders are processed in the order in which they are received. To optimize the utilization, the project committee can define a different order of processing. The decisions are communicated transparently. Critical decisions may be qualified by the SAB on a case-by-case design.
§ 4 Application for capacity: project requests
  1. The BIP offers its users early contact during the planning phase of the experiment in order to consult the experiment design with its advisory capacity.
  2. The contact is made via the BIP web portal. For this purpose, the application must be submitted via the “new request” feature. The content of the submitted request impacts the choice of the most relevant type of pipeline modification. The information must be provided in advance in the form of a fully completed request. Incomplete requests will not be processed.
  3. The Project Committee will review the request received and, upon acceptance of the project, will appoint a responsible platform scientist to carry out the implementation planning. This includes a calculation of the anticipated costs of the service according to the respective valid cost and service catalog as well as the prediction of the probable duration of the analysis.
  4. If the user does not provide additional details, standard settings will be utilized by default.
  5. The management of the BIP reserves the right to refuse requests in duly substantiated cases. The refusal must be justified in writing.
  6. Before the data is accepted, a binding statement on the legal requirements of the respective analysis must be made. The user of the service facility is responsible for the respective ethics votes, the presence of informed consent (human), and adherence to ethical guidelines, in animals and humans.
  7. The user is obliged to comply with the rules of good scientific practice.
  8. With the submitted application, the user accepts the terms of use.
§ 5 Cost transfer
  1. The cost comprises the bioinformatician's work hours and CPU hours.
  2. Displayed prices are non-obligatory. The final price will be determined based on the generated reports after the process execution, providing a clear overview of the CPU hours utilized. Bioinformatician work hours will be tracked using Jira, ensuring accurate recording of time spent on each task.
  3. The prices are calculated without profit orientation and do not include personal costs, service- and maintenance contracts, depreciation, building rent, and maintenance.
§ 6 Data security, data transfer, and storage
  1. The BIP utilizes the SFTP protocol for transferring data. SFTP provides a secure method, encrypting both the data and commands to prevent unauthorized access or interception.
  2. Access to the BIP SFTP disk is restricted to authorized users only.
  3. The BIP data cycle includes regular data backups to prevent data loss in case of system failures or breaches.
  4. The project-related generated data (metadata, primary and secondary data files) are stored in a secure form on a file server of the University. Storage modalities and duration will be defined individually in the project request.
  5. The default data storage period is three months. The user is responsible for adhering to the specified storage period. After the above-mentioned retention times the data will be deleted on all our storage systems without the possibility of restoration.
  6. The archiving option is available for data processed on BIP. In this case, the data are encrypted using Crypt4GH, the Global Alliance approved secure method for sharing genetic data, and then stored on the Google Cloud Platform. The minimum storage period is 10 years, and only one copy of the data will be archived. The cost of transferring data back from Google Cloud will be charged separately based on the size of the downloaded files.
§ 7 Cooperation, publication of results and exploitation rights
  1. All services provided by the BIP have to be acknowledged in relevant documents, e.g. in scientific publications or grant applications.
  2. All work and results that have been developed together with the BIP must be clearly identified as "in cooperation with the BIP" in the acknowledgment part. Corresponding to the intellectual input, this also includes a co-authorship of the participating BIP scientists according to the rules of good scientific practice. The scientific contribution of the BIP will be mutually evaluated and agreed upon individually in each project.
  3. When publishing the data, the corresponding manuscripts must be made available in advance for a sufficient amount of time (14 days).
  4. For regulations on exploitation rights, the statutory provisions under the employee invention law apply.
§ 8 Liability and warranty
    The BIP does not warrant that results provided in the context of use are correct, usable, and complete, or that their use can not violate the rights of third parties.
§ 9 Entry into force
    These Terms of Use enter into force on June, 5th, 2024