BIDS Upload¶

Prerequisites¶

• A BIDS-compliant dataset packed as .zip or .tar.gz
• The archive must be ANC-ready
• An ANC GitLab account (see Step 1 if you don't have one)

Step 1 — Open the upload page¶

Navigate to the ANC upload portal. You see the Study Registration form.

Step 2 — Log in¶

Click Login with ANC in the top-right corner. This redirects you to the ANC GitLab OAuth login. After authenticating, you are sent back to the form and your username is filled in automatically.

Step 3 — Confirm your username¶

Your GitLab username is pre-filled after login. Click Check Username. The system verifies your account exists in GitLab.

Step 4 — Select or create a project¶

You now see two options side by side:

Option A — Upload to an existing project:

1. The Your projects dropdown is populated automatically
2. Select the project you want to add data to
3. The upload section appears below

Option B — Create a new project:

1. Enter a study name (e.g. My fMRI Study 2026)
2. Select your research group/site from the dropdown
3. If your institution is not listed, select Request access for unlisted site, enter your affiliation, and click Request Group Access — an admin will create the group
4. Click Create Project — this takes 30–60 seconds as it copies the BIDS template into the new GitLab project
5. The new project is auto-selected when done

Step 5 — Upload your dataset¶

With a project selected, the Upload Data section appears.

1. Click the file picker and choose your .zip or .tar.gz file
2. Click Upload

The upload uses the TUS resumable protocol — it sends the file in 50 MB chunks. If your connection drops, selecting the same file again resumes from where it left off.

A progress indicator shows:

Uploading mydata.zip (42.3 GB)…
Upload in progress (124s elapsed). Uploaded 12.50 GB / 42.30 GB.

For reference: 100 GB typically takes 2–4 h on a 50–100 Mbps connection, or 25–50 min on 300–600 Mbps.

Step 6 — Monitor processing¶

Once the file transfer finishes, the status console at the bottom shows each processing step in real time:

Starting resumable upload (TUS)…
✓ mydata.zip transferred. Processing in background…
File received (42.30 GB). Extracting archive…
Note: Extracting 42 GB may take 10–30+ minutes depending on I/O speed.
✓ Extraction complete. Running BIDS validation…
✓ BIDS validation passed.
Creating branch and pushing dataset files to GitLab…
✓ Copied 1842 files. Committing and pushing to GitLab…
Dataset is 42.3 GB — git push may take 10–60 minutes.
✓ Push complete (branch: dataset-update-20260325-143012-a1b2c3d4). Creating merge request…
Workflow completed

Step 7 — Review the merge request¶

After Workflow completed appears, a merge request has been created in the GitLab project targeting main. One of our data stewards is assigned as reviewer automatically. You can follow the review at data.anc.plus.ac.at.

Troubleshooting¶