Application description and policy model in collaborative environment for sharing of information on epidemiological and clinical research data sets.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Sharing of epidemiological and clinical data sets among researchers is
poor at best, in detriment of science and community at large. The purpose of this
paper is therefore to (1) describe a novel Web application designed to share information
on study data sets focusing on epidemiological clinical research in a collaborative
environment and (2) create a policy model placing this collaborative environment into
the current scientific social context. METHODOLOGY: The Database of Databases application
was developed based on feedback from epidemiologists and clinical researchers requiring
a Web-based platform that would allow for sharing of information about epidemiological
and clinical study data sets in a collaborative environment. This platform should
ensure that researchers can modify the information. A Model-based predictions of number
of publications and funding resulting from combinations of different policy implementation
strategies (for metadata and data sharing) were generated using System Dynamics modeling.
PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The application allows researchers to easily upload information
about clinical study data sets, which is searchable and modifiable by other users
in a wiki environment. All modifications are filtered by the database principal investigator
in order to maintain quality control. The application has been extensively tested
and currently contains 130 clinical study data sets from the United States, Australia,
China and Singapore. Model results indicated that any policy implementation would
be better than the current strategy, that metadata sharing is better than data-sharing,
and that combined policies achieve the best results in terms of publications. CONCLUSIONS:
Based on our empirical observations and resulting model, the social network environment
surrounding the application can assist epidemiologists and clinical researchers contribute
and search for metadata in a collaborative environment, thus potentially facilitating
collaboration efforts among research communities distributed around the globe.
Type
Journal articleSubject
Access to InformationAustralia
Biomedical Research
China
Computer-Assisted Instruction
Cooperative Behavior
Electronic Mail
Humans
Information Dissemination
Information Storage and Retrieval
International Cooperation
Internet
Models, Theoretical
Public Policy
Reproducibility of Results
Singapore
Software
United States
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/4527Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1371/journal.pone.0009314Publication Info
de Carvalho, EC; Batilana, AP; Simkins, J; Martins, H; Shah, J; Rajgor, D; ... Pietrobon,
R (2010). Application description and policy model in collaborative environment for sharing
of information on epidemiological and clinical research data sets. PLoS One, 5(2). pp. e9314. 10.1371/journal.pone.0009314. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/4527.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Scott F Rockart
Associate Professor of the Practice
Scott Rockart earned an MBA in 1996 from MIT and a PhD in 2001 from MIT in behavioral
and policy sciences and management science. He spent two years as an assistant professor
at London Business School (2000-2002) and then was an assistant professor at Fuqua
from 2002-2010. He was also an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill from 2010 – 2016. Scott rejoined Fuqua in 2017 as an associate
professor of the practice in the strategy area. He is the Eads Assoc

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