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What is it

ACCORD (Assuring Controls Compliance of Research Data) gives researchers from public universities across the state of Virginia access to a multicore computing system capable of processing and storing de-identified sensitive data. ACCORD is appropriate for de-identified PHI, FERPA, business confidential, and other types of de-identified sensitive data. This is especially important for schools that lack the financial, staffing, or technical resources for such systems. ACCORD is designed to encourage collaborative research partnerships across institutions by managing the risks associated with sensitive data sharing.

ACCORD is project-based, which means use of the platform centers on individual projects.
A principal investigator requests access to the platform (specifying a project title and level of sensitivity), populates the project with co-investigators, and imports data. Each of the investigators can create and use computing environments to run analysis on the data. When done with the analysis, the investigators can spin down the pla/tform to free the resources.

Who can use it

This platform is open for approved academic research on sensitive data. Researchers from
public universities across the state of Virginia are invited to request access. ACCORD is also open to researchers from other states who are working on COVID related projects.

ACCORD is appropriate for de-identified PHI, FERPA, de-identified HIPAA, business confidential, and other types of sensitive data. More
restrictive levels, such as CUI, FISMA, iTar, and PCI cannot be satisfied.

How do I use it

ACCORD is entirely web-based, which means it can be easily accessed using a modern browser such as Chrome, Firefox, Edge or Safari. Once you have created a project in ACCORD, you can perform computational research using one of the application environments. Currently we offer RStudio, JupyterLab, Theia C++, and Theia Python. More detailed information can be found in our User Guide

ACCORD offers no SSH, FTP, Remote Desktop, or VNC access.

Who runs it

The ACCORD project was developed by the Research Computing Group at the University of Virginia and funded through an NSF grant awarded to Ron Hutchins who serves as the Principal Investigator.