Tools for Faster and Cheaper Delivery of Integrated Registries

The goal of this project is to enable fastercheaper delivery of integrated registries for mental health research centers by improving the Research Exchange DatabaseRexDBan open source integrated registry platform developed by Prometheus Research during a prior Phase I SBIR awardIntegrated research registries can provide many benefits to mental health researchers and organizationsincluding easier data use and reusereduced overheadmore effective data management practicesand better data sharingHoweverregistries are expensive to build and even more expensive to maintainwith maintenance accounting for the vast majority of a registry s total costFactors that contribute to these high costs includeoverutilization of expensive labore gsoftware developers and database programmersbuilding customhome grown registries from a patchwork of proprietary or locally developed toolsand failure to engineer registries for maintainability in the face of high data varietyhigh metadata volatilityand complex data provenanceRexDB was built to solve these problems by empowering mental health research centers to support cost effectivecentralized data management processesIt does this byaserving as an open sourceend to end registry platformandbempowering semi technical research staffin a role we callconfiguration analystto perform the configuration functions formerly reserved for high cost software developers and database administratorsIn Phase IIwe propose to create better tools that empower analysts to configure RexDB based registries with less trainingCurrentlyanalysts must configure RexDB by editing multiple text filesrequiring them to know and monitor technical details that slow down the workWe propose to develop and evaluate two products to improve analystsefficiency and effectivenessthe RexDB Integrated Development Environment for AnalystsRexIDEAa graphical user interface that enables analysts to configure integrated registriesAimand RexDB UniversityRexUa web portal containing self guided training materials for teaching analysts how to use RexIDEAAimRexIDEAAimwill be composed of a graphical user interface that enables an analyst to configure and deployAima default database and web applicationAimanalytic data martsandAimuser workflowsWe will then pilot RexU to further boost analystscapacity for efficient and effective RexDB configuration with RexIDEACompletion of these Aims will yield a suite of tools and training products that help analysts configure and maintain RexDB based integrated registry systems more quickly and effectivelylowering the cost of conducting research at their institutions and of sharing data across projectsUltimatelyby lowering the cost of organizing research datathis work will facilitate data usereuseand sharingaccelerating discovery