Joining NAN

Overview

NAN’s mission is to democratize access to high-field NMR and unlock latent knowledge in the collective body of experimental data by making it more Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR).

A cornerstone of NAN is its advanced data browser, which lets users and labs easily organize, explore, and search their datasets.

NAN welcomes new NMR facilities that share this vision. To join, a facility must:

Meet the technical requirements
Contribute to shared Knowledgebases
Participate in NAN stewardship via the Advisory Committee (AC) and reviewing UHF requests

Admission requires a majority vote of the AC.

Contact Information

Facilities interested in joining NAN are encouraged to reach out to the NAN leadership team and review the NAN technical and operational requirements below as well as the NAN Charter, and the Terms & Conditions located on the NAN web portal.

What NAN Does and Does Not Do

NAN does not

Schedule NMR instruments—each facility retains its own scheduling system.
Collect user fees—billing remains internal to each facility.
Mandate harvesting of every dataset—harvesting is controlled by facility managers and user preferences.
Release datasets publicly until the user marks them public or three years after the datasets have been harvested (extensions of one year may be requested within six months of the release date and repeated as needed).
Require that an instrument be opened to external users—each facility decides which instruments, if any, are available to outside usage. Note that all instruments, whether open for external use or not, may utilize the data stewardship features of NAN.

NAN does

Provide the NAN Data Transport System (NDTS) with automatic harvesting of datasets from NAN connected instruments.
Furnish a user-friendly browser for dataset organization, exploration, and management for facility managers, PIs, and users.
Maintain two redundant physical copies of every dataset, effectively backing up facility data.
Give PIs flexible, intuitive controls for managing lab-group permissions which dictate access to data.
Provide facility managers with tools to manage facility details, instruments, users, and monitor system status.
Offer novice-friendly Knowledgebase content plus vetted reference datasets that can serve as experimental templates.

Fees

NAN currently charges no fees for membership or data services. If a fee structure becomes necessary, it will be determined by the AC.

NAN Technical & Operational Requirements

See the Onboarding Guide for comprehensive details on on-boarding a facility.

Onboarding

Provide a dedicated gateway computer

logically located on the same network segment as the NMR spectrometer workstations
Minimal requirements are: 64-bit, dual-core x86-64 CPU ≥ 2 GHz; 8 GB RAM; ≥ 500 GB of local SSD/HDD storage; 1 Gb ethernet interface with static or DHCP addressable IP address.
The operating system should be a current 64-bit Linux variant (Ubuntu LTS versions recommended).
The gateway needs outbound HTTPS (TCP 443) access to the NAN datacenter and must allow inbound traffic on port 60195 from the NMR spectrometer workstations.

Download and install NAN Data Transport Setting (NDTS) components

Download the NAN Data Transport System (NDTS) components from the NAN facility dashboard
Install and configure the gateway software on the gateway computer
Install and configure the NDTS daemon and GUI on each spectrometer workstation connected to NAN

Input facility and instrument metadata via the facility dashboard

Input facility information including names, website links, description, services, addresses, and staff
Input instrument metadata for all spectrometers and probes to be connected to NAN

Define Staff Roles

For each staff member listed one or more Roles must be selected.
Special Note: Staff members assigned the roles of Director, Administrator, or Facility Manager have special privileges, including the ability to edit facility information, manage facility users, and access all data harvested by NDTS from the facility.

Cybersecurity compliance

consult with institutional IT staff to verify that NDTS is compatible with institutional cybersecurity policies

Operations

Manage NDTS operations

Configuring user NDTS settings in the facility dashboard
Monitor system health through the virtual NAN Operations Center (vNOC)
Review the dataset browser to reassign any unselected or mis-attributed datasets

Keep software up-to-date

Install updates to NDTS software (daemon or gateway) in a timely manner
Keep the security patches for the gateway's operating system current

NAN stewardship

The facility director will serve as an ex officio member of the NAN Advisory Committee (AC), and participate in the annual AC meeting, either virtually or in-person
The facility director or designee will serve as a reviewer for ultra-high-field (UHF) instrument time requests submitted through the NAN UHF request system for any UHF connected spectrometers that opt into the service

Knowledgebase contributions

Curate existing KB resources.
Develop and submit new KB content:
- Expert KBs – exemplar datasets with step-by-step protocols and/or analysis scripts that cover sample preparation, experimental setup, signal processing, and data analysis
- Novice KBs – concise overviews for newcomers that explain how NMR can address specific research questions, with links to related literature vignettes and Expert KBs
- Literature vignettes – brief synopses of peer-reviewed studies where NMR played a key role, helping novice users appreciate the technique’s utility