Policies

The CSD Facility policies are fully aligned with NSF and University of Minnesota policies, and have been formulated through discussions with NSF, Facility Governance Committees, University of Minnesota administration, and the research community.

Citation

Anyone receiving support from the CSD Facility should acknowledge the facility in their publications and presentations. Including the facility in your acknowledgements helps to spread the word about our services, and is crucial to the continued funding of the program.

Accessioning Cores

The CSD Facility accepts cores of all types for permanent storage and curation. The cores may be recently-collected or decades old. Researchers wishing to accession cores should contact Kristina Brady Shannon to discuss the details and costs. 

Sample Distribution

Sample requests may originate from any scientist, curator, or educator with adequate resources to complete a scientific investigation, or who will prepare materials for curatorial or educational purposes.

Access

The NSF-defined exclusive use period (during which only the original PIs have access to the cores or data) is a maximum of two years from the date of generation of the sample or data. This usually involves multiple access moratorium timeframes for the samples and data generated during a single project. For example, if cores are collected in February, imaged in June, and discrete sample analyses are completed in December, the access moratorium for the cores expires 2 years later in February, for the images in June, and for the sample analytical data in December. 

After the conclusion of the access moratorium, sample requests may be submitted (subject to review and approval), and data are publicly available.

This access policy applies to all samples stored in the facility repository, and to all data generated at the facility, regardless of the original funding source(s) that supported core collection and data generation. 

Forms

All CSD Facility forms can be found here.