Software development for neuroimaging: Promoting community access and best practices through NITRC

The Neuroimaging Informatics Tools and Resources Clearinghouse, NITRC, is a resource for organizing knowledge about the publicly available resources for neuroimaging. Located at www.nitrc.org, it is based on GForge, and brings a common environment for downloading, discussion, education, rating, and documentation for a growing number of resources. Moreover, NITRC provides a platform to support dasiabest practicespsila in software engineering and helps to remove barriers that have limited software sharing in the past. We present its design and status, and report on its uses not only to promote software, but also to foster communities of users that promote technological advances specific domain topics. Resources for neuroanatomic segmentation of structural MRI and functional connectivity analysis in fMRI are used as case studies.