Advanced Data Management

ADM offers researchers support and advice on topics related to data stewardship during all phases of the data life cycle, such as: Safe processing of personal data, designing and building research databases, writing a data management plan and ensuring data quality. ADM also offers advice on FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data. For example, by helping researchers to answer questions like: ‘How can I safely store data to ensure long term availability?’ and ‘How can I make my data findable for other researchers?’. Good data stewardship not only increases the reusability of data, but also the data quality. To help with good data stewardship, ADM composes guidelines, policies and offers courses on various aspects of data stewardship.

The Research Support Desk (RSD) is the central one stop for all research-related questions at the LUMC. By quickly connecting people with questions to experts who know the answers, RSD aims to improve the efficiency of research and improve the quality of research. The RSD has a wide network of experts within the LUMC, such as research supporters, research facilities, methodological experts, etc. The RSD also offers multi-disciplinary meetings (MDM), where researchers can ask for input on their research protocol from methodologists, statisticians, data stewards, etc. These MDMs improve the quality of research and speed up ethics committee approval. For information on the LUMC Research Support Desk, please contact RSD@LUMC.nl.

Within the LUMC, the data management system Castor EDC is available for clinical research. It is possible to build customized Castor databases to collect and manage clinical research data in a safe and transparent way. Researchers can build their own database in Castor, with support from ADM where necessary. ADM organizes hands-on workshops on Castor for LUMC employees and offers consultation on how to build and use a Castor database. Alternatively, ADM can design and/or manage the database as contracted. To ensure correct and safe use of Castor EDC in the LUMC, ADM composes guidelines, policies and offers courses.

Opal is OBiBa's core data management application. This server application provides all the necessary tools to import, transform and describe data. Subject’s identifiers can be managed at data import and export time. Thanks to its integration with R , complex statistical analysis and reports can be performed. On request, ADM is contracted to build and manage data in Opal providing medical researchers inside and outside LUMC with a central digital place where research data can be brought together, made visible and accessible.  

ADM collaborates within and outside the LUMC to implement a FAIR data infrastructure. The tools and services developed will support researchers and healthcare professionals to make health data and research software FAIR for both humans and machines. Machine-actionability is emphasized by the FAIR Principles since structured, machine-actionable metadata are important to facilitate data integration and automate data management tasks.

ADM is developing this infrastructure with partners in the LUMC Data Competence Center (DCC) and Health-RI. The DCC aims to improve the quality and efficiency of working with data, while also promoting the reuse of expertise and data, making data FAIR for both humans and machines. This expertise is also used for the Health-RI initiative that aims to facilitate and stimulate a national integrated health data infrastructure accessible to researchers, citizens, care providers, and industry. ADM is one of the parties responsible for the Leiden Health-RI node.

Contact

ADM@lumc.nl 
071 526 97 26