This session provides users with an introduction to tools and resources that facilitate the implementation of FAIR in their research.

This video gives a short introduction to the EBRAINS data sharing platform, why it was developed, and how it contributes to open data sharing.

This video explains what metadata is, why it is important, and how you can organize your metadata to increase the FAIRness of your data on EBRAINS.

This video introduces the importance of writing a Data Descriptor to accompany your dataset on EBRAINS. It gives concrete examples on what information to include and highlights how this makes your data more FAIR.

In this lesson, users will learn about the importance of proper citation of software resources and tools used in neuroscientific research. 

Since their introduction in 2016, the FAIR data principles have gained increasing recognition and adoption in global neuroscience. FAIR defines a set of high level principles and practices for making digital objects, including data, software and workflows, Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. But FAIR is not a specification; it leaves many of the specifics up to individual scientific disciplines to define. INCF has been leading the way in promoting, defining and implementing FAIR data practices for neuroscience. We have been bringing together researchers, infrastructure providers, industry and publishers through our programs and networks.

This lesson provides an overview of the current status in the field of neuroscientific ontologies, presenting examples of data organization and standards, particularly from neuroimaging and electrophysiology. 

The lesson introduces the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS), the community standard for organizing, curating, and sharing neuroimaging and associated data. The session focuses on understanding the BIDS framework, learning its data structure and validation processes.

This session moves from BIDS basics into analysis workflows, focusing on how to turn raw, BIDS-organized data into derivatives using BIDS Apps and containers for reproducible processing. It compares end-to-end pipelines across fMRI and PET (and notes EEG/MEG), explains typical preprocessing choices, and shows how standardized inputs plus containerized tools (Docker/AppTainer) yield consistent, auditable outputs.

The session explains GDPR rules around data sharing for research in Europe, the distinction between law and ethics, and introduces practical solutions for securely sharing sensitive datasets. Researchers have more flexibility than commonly assumed: scientific research is considered a public interest task, so explicit consent for data sharing isn’t legally required, though transparency and informing participants remain ethically important. The talk also introduces publicneuro.eu, a controlled-access platform that enables sharing neuroimaging datasets with open metadata, DOIs, and customizable access restrictions while ensuring GDPR compliance.

This session introduces the PET-to-BIDS (PET2BIDS) library, a toolkit designed to simplify the conversion and preparation of PET imaging datasets into BIDS-compliant formats. It supports multiple data types and formats (e.g., DICOM, ECAT7+, nifti, JSON), integrates seamlessly with Excel-based metadata, and provides automated routines for metadata updates, blood data conversion, and JSON synchronization. PET2BIDS improves human readability by mapping complex reconstruction names into standardized, descriptive labels and offers extensive documentation, examples, and video tutorials to make adoption easier for researchers.

This session introduces the PET-to-BIDS (PET2BIDS) library, a toolkit designed to simplify the conversion and preparation of PET imaging datasets into BIDS-compliant formats. It supports multiple data types and formats (e.g., DICOM, ECAT7+, nifti, JSON), integrates seamlessly with Excel-based metadata, and provides automated routines for metadata updates, blood data conversion, and JSON synchronization. PET2BIDS improves human readability by mapping complex reconstruction names into standardized, descriptive labels and offers extensive documentation, examples, and video tutorials to make adoption easier for researchers.

This session dives into practical PET tooling on BIDS data—showing how to run motion correction, register PET↔MRI, extract time–activity curves, and generate standardized PET-BIDS derivatives with clear QC reports. It introduces modular BIDS Apps (head-motion correction, TAC extraction), a full pipeline (PETPrep), and a PET/MRI defacer, with guidance on parameters, outputs, provenance, and why Dockerized containers are the reliable way to run them at scale.

This session introduces two PET quantification tools—bloodstream for processing arterial blood data and kinfitr for kinetic modeling and quantification—built to work with BIDS/BIDS-derivatives and containers. Bloodstream fuses autosampler and manual measurements (whole blood, plasma, parent fraction) using interpolation or fitted models (incl. hierarchical GAMs) to produce a clean arterial input function (AIF) and whole-blood curves with rich QC reports ready. TAC data (e.g., from PETPrep) and blood (e.g., from bloodstream) can be ingested using kinfitr to run reproducible, GUI-driven analyses: define combined ROIs, calculate weighting factors, estimate blood–tissue delay, choose and chain models (e.g., 2TCM → 1TCM with parameter inheritance), and export parameters/diagnostics. Both are available as Docker apps; workflows emphasize configuration files, reports, and standard outputs to support transparency and reuse.

Hierarchical Event Descriptors (HED) fill a major gap in the neuroinformatics standards toolkit, namely the specification of the nature(s) of events and time-limited conditions recorded as having occurred during time series recordings (EEG, MEG, iEEG, fMRI, etc.). Here, the HED Working Group presents an online INCF workshop on the need for, structure of, tools for, and use of HED annotation to prepare neuroimaging time series data for storing, sharing, and advanced analysis. 

In this lesson, attendees will learn about the data structure standards, specifically the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS), an INCF-endorsed standard for organizing, annotating, and describing data collected during neuroimaging experiments.