Getting Started on MidwayR3
How is Working with Restricted Research Data Different from Open-Access Research Data?
Researchers at UChicago and their collaborators working with restricted research data must adhere to stringent data security and privacy obligations. These obligations are often intricate, necessitating the implementation and management of security and privacy controls as mandated by data use agreements (DUAs), procurement contracts (PCs), approved protocols from institutional review boards (IRBs), and applicable regulations from federal, state, and local governments, as well as industry standards. While these requirements are critical, they also increase the cost of research, complicate the scientific workflow, and eventually extend the project completion timeline.
How Can My Research Benefit from Using MidwayR3?
The Research Computing Center offers the MidwayR3 trusted research environment that greatly reduces the burden of handling restricted research data to meet necessary compliance requirements. As the certified centralized solution for storing, processing, analyzing, and transmitting restricted research data, it assists UChicago researchers in streamlining their projects involving restricted research data.
How Do I Know If MidwayR3 Fulfills My Research Data Requirements?
UChicago’s Secure Research Data Strategy (SRDS) categorizes restricted research data into three risk levels: high, moderate, and low. This classification depends on the liability terms and compliance requirements associated with the data. MidwayR3 is specifically designed to accommodate high-level restricted data, although moderate- and low-level data are also permitted.
Researchers can propose a trusted research environment where the data will be stored, processed, and analyzed when applying for restricted research data, when drafting protocols for collecting such data, or when migrating acquired restricted data to a new environment. Given that data security and privacy obligations vary across different agreements, protocols, and contracts, an ancillary review of data-specific obligations is conducted by the University Research Administration (URA) or IRB to classify the data according to its risk level.
The security team designated per trusted research environment will then review the prospective restricted research data and either approve the chosen environment or collaborate with key stakeholders to address compliance requirements.
What Additional Benefits Does MidwayR3 Provide Beyond Compliance?
MidwayR3 is a High-Performance Computing (HPC) system operating in a Linux environment. While it shares similarities with other HPC systems managed by the RCC, it is specifically configured to provide enhanced security and privacy controls. Each PI is granted 500GB of high-performance storage with all data being backed up. The shared research software is maintained and configured by RCC experts to facilitate distributed simulations and optimize high-intense computing tasks. Shared open-source software and high-performance hardware are available to all MidwayR3 users, while dedicated resources such as additional storage, private compute nodes, and proprietary software can be provisioned through the Cluster Partnership Program (CPP). Access to MidwayR3 is managed on a project basis, requiring strict authorization from the PI or designated proxy. The PI acts as the data steward whose responsibilities are outlined in the Research Data Protection Policy. RCC staff can assist PIs with various tasks throughout the data management cycle, including assisting with restricted data applications, transferring restricted data, configuring software, migrating research workflows, securely deleting data, and other related activities.
Who Is Eligible to Claim a MidwayR3 Account?
UChicago researchers and their collaborators are eligible to apply for and maintain MidwayR3 accounts provided they have an active project involving restricted research data that is subject to DUAs, IRBs, and/or PCs. Additionally, their data must be approved for storage, processing, and analysis within the MidwayR3 environment.
How Can I Claim an Account on MidwayR3?
First, a PI has to claim the MidwayR3 Project Workspace. Given that the data has been approved already for MidwayR3, RCC staff will assist with configuring the project environment and create/add the PI’s account to the project . Then the researchers, working under their PI’s supervision can claim MidwayR3 General User Accounts. Once approved by their PI, their user accounts will be provisioned and added to the requested project as well.
MidwayR3 operates independently of the open-science HPC systems managed by the RCC. As a result, accounts created for open-science Midway2 or Midway3 systems do not exist on MidwayR3. For collaborators who are not affiliated with UChicago, assistance will be provided to create CNetIDs once they have signed the Data Collaborator Agreement (DCA) and as long as the relevant agreements, protocols, and contracts permit such collaborations.
How Can I Transfer Restricted Research Data to MidwayR3?
The data transfer may be subject to some restriction outlined in the DUAs, IRBs, and/or PCs. Additionally, the transfer method may depend on the size of your data. Please reach out to midwayr-help@rcc.uchicago.edu to consult with the RCC team.
Can MidwayR3 Be Used Only to Convert Restricted Research Data into Open-Access Data?
Yes, in some cases, it is feasible to anonymize data such as personal health information (PHI) or personally identifiable information (PII) to mitigate risk, allowing for the migration of fully or partially de-identified data to a different research environment, provided that data security obligations do not restrict this action. Please reach out to midwayr-help@rcc.uchicago.edu to learn more about such procedures.
What if I Have More Questions?
Please email us at midwayr-help@rcc.uchicago.edu.
If you do not have a MidwayR PI or user account, please request one by clicking the corresponding link below.
