NIF Registry Tutorial

Browse NIF Registry data in NIF
For more information, visit the NeuroLex entry  for NIF Registry

*For a full description of curation policies and best practices, please see here*

The NIF registry is a database of electronic resources that have been selected by NIF curators, or contributed by the community, as valuable tools for researchers and students in the field of neuroscience.

The NIF registry contains a listing of hundreds of databases, software tools, brain atlases, granting agencies, tissue banks, and many other resources. This list of resources is being continuously added to and updated by the NIF staff, affiliates and people who recommend their resources to the NIF.

To view all resources in the NIF system you can clear any previous search from the advanced search page and click on the NIF Registry tab.

From here, there is a list of categories on the left.  These can make searching through the extensive list of registered resources much more efficient.  The user can search by things such as Educational resources, Research materials or Funding opportunities.  Each of these category folders expand to show what’s included in them, some have more expandable folders as well.



The user can click on any of these descriptors to get that list of resources.  For this example we’ll choose “Tissue Bank”.  The table on the right will then display the number of Tissue Banks that are currently registered with NIF.

The table on the right shows the Resource Name, a shortened Description, the Resource Type, the Date it was added to the Registry as well as a link to the Full Record.  The Resource Name is linked to the home page for the resource. 

Note: clicking on the Resource Name column header will sort the results alphabetically in either ascending or descending order.

The user can roll their mouse over the truncated description for a pop up containing the full description including keywords used to label the resource. The other way to read this entire description is to click on the link to the Full Record.

When looking at the full Registry list, the Resource Type column can be helpful.  It includes labels for each resource given by the curation staff.  This indicates what kind of information can be found at said site, the same labeling found in the category list to the left.  A Database provides information in certain structured formats, whereas Data visualization software points to a resource where software can either be downloaded or, in some cases, purchased.

To see all of the resource types, refer back to the category list and folders on the left.

The user can also enter a resource type in as their search term to get a list of applicable resources.

All resources fall into one or more of these general categories by what the resources provide:

• Data Resource: A resource that provides access to data, either stuctured or unstructured
• Software Resource: A resource that provides access to software such as software programs or source code
• Material Resource: A resource that provides access to physical materials like reagents, tissue samples or organisms
• Funding Resource: A resource that provides funding opportunities in the form of grants or contracts
• Training Resource: A resource that provides educational resources
• Job Resource: A resource that provides listing of employment opportunities
• People Resource: A resource that provides information on individual people based, for example, on expertise or affiliation.