The NCI Community Hub (The NCI Hub) will be retired as of May 17th, 2024.  Please be sure to migrate all your data off the Hub before this date.  We hope the NCI Hub has proven to be a valuable resource for you over the years. Thank you for being a part of our community.

We encourage you to explore options that may serve as alternatives to the NCI Community Hub. Below are a few suggestions as well as a features comparison table. We are available to answer questions regarding retirement of NCI Community Hub and how to access your content for migration.  Users will be responsible for the migration of their content, however.  

Retirement Timeline

Starting on September 15^th Hub features will gradually be disabled over the coming months as we prepare to shut down the Hub.  We advise communities to begin winding down the creation of new content to streamline your migration to other platforms. 

• September 15^th: Account registration, Answers, and Wishlist
• November 9^th: Courses, Resources and Tools
• February 16^th: Blogs, Collections, and Events
• March 15^th: Publication, Group, and Project
• May 17^th: Hub Retirement

To view the full Retirement Timeline CLICK HERE.

NCI Hub Alternatives

The resources below are not affiliated with the NCI Hub and are listed for informational purposes only. Please contact each resource directly with questions regarding their format.

Groups with content that contain sensitive information should refer to the Document Storage and Sharing Tools knowledge base article on guidance.

For a list of NIH supported data sharing resources, domain specific and generalist repositories, please refer to the link below.

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/NIHbmic/domain_specific_repositories.html

 

External Users

1. Science Gateways Catalog (https://catalog.sciencegateways.org/#/home)
   
   A collection of gateways and gateway-building technologies. Example science gateways include.
   •  Cancer Therapeutics Response Portal (http://portals.broadinstitute.org/ctrp/)
   • nanoHUB (https://nanohub.org/)

 

2. Media Wiki: https://www.mediawiki.org

Media wiki is free and open-source collaboration and documentation platform powering sites such as Wikipedia.It helps collect and organize knowledge that can be made available to the public.

 

3. Figshare: https://figshare.com  

A free to use open access repository where researchers can store and share their research. Figshare can store a wide variety of data types along with large format files up to 20GB.

For NIH-funded researchers there is a NIH Figshare instance which provides a free repository solution. https://nih.figshare.com/

 

4. ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net

ResearchGate is a free to join social networking platform for the scientific community. Users can find and share their own work or collaborate with others through private chatrooms to share data and edit shared documents.

 

5. Mendeley: https://www.mendeley.com

Mendeley is a reference management platform that enables researcher to load, share and track their research publications.

 

    6. Domain-Specific Repositories: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/NIHbmic/domain_specific_repositories.html

To help researchers locate an appropriate repository for sharing or accessing data, BMIC maintains lists of data sharing repositories. Domain-specific repositories are typically limited to data of a certain type or related to a certain discipline. Generalist repositories accept data regardless of data type, format, content, or disciplinary focus

 

NIH Users

Options below are available to NIH users only

Confluence (NCI Wiki/Collaborate): https://wiki.nci.nih.gov/

NCI Wiki, powered by Confluence, is an excellent choice for users who want wiki style pages with basic file storage support.Setup is relatively intuitive for those who have authored a wiki before. There are many built-in templates and macros allowing users to quickly create pages with navigation. This would be recommended for those who have their content public facing with a small set of admin users to manage the space. Due to the limited availability of license's, groups that require many administrators or members access, we recommend seeking other alternatives.

Click the link below to initiate the request for creation for NCI (Wiki/Collaborate)

Confluence (NCI Wiki/Collaborate) Space Request Form

For general questions, like how to use Wiki/Collaborate, users can contact Application Support at NCIAppSupport@nih.gov and by telephone, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET, Monday to Friday except federal holidays: (240) 276-5541 or (888) 478-4423 (toll-free)

NCI SharePoint: https://service.cancer.gov/ncisp?id=kb_article_view&sys_kb_id=459d5abd1bf36990079dea4ce54bcb6e

SharePoint sites can be used for content management involving pages and files that require group membership and authentication. There is support for both internal and external NCI users including sharing of sensitive and/or non-sensitive information between internal and external collaborators.

Click the link below to initiate request for creation for SharePoint Online

SharePoint Online Site Request Form

For general question about SharePoint please contact Ute Reichling. ute.reichling@nih.gov

NCI Microsoft Teams:  https://service.cancer.gov/ncisp?id=kb_article_view&sys_kb_id=9af1ad8b1bf761d0079dea4ce54bcb16

Microsoft teams provides communication features such as channels or conversations on top of content and file management. A Microsoft Teams “team” can be created as a collaboration hub that has the same features as SharePoint with the added feature of channels with conversation threads which allow group members to communicate with each other.

Click the link below to initiate request for creation for SharePoint Online

Microsoft Teams team Request Form

For general question about Microsoft Teams please contact Ute Reichling. ute.reichling@nih.gov

Platform Comparison

Option	Pros	Cons
Confluence (NCI Wiki/Collaborate)	Allow combination of public and private facing content Simple wiki-style editing with templates to create pages	License is consumed for each user.  Not recommended for groups requiring very large number of private members as NCI has a limited license capacity.
SharePoint	Easily upload files and create pages and content protected behind group membership User count does not affect licensing Support for both internal and external users	No ability to have front-facing public pages or information.  Group membership and authentication is always required
Microsoft Teams team	Same feature set as SharePoint but with added ability to create communications channels and conversations for members to interact with each other Beneficial for fostering group member interaction through discussions User count does not affect licensing Support for both internal and external users	No ability to have front-facing public pages or information.  Group membership and authentication is always required

 

General Decision Tree

This infographic covers the major decision points groups should consider when deciding on a destination platform.

 

Support Contact

If you have any question or concerns, please feel free to submit a ticket here.