Developmental Research Database (DRDB) System
Table of contents
- What is the DRDB system?
- What’s in the DRDB system?
- How does the DRDB system help recruitment and research management?
- Access to DRDB
- Sharepoint
What is the DRDB system?
The Developmental Research Database (DRDB) system is a web-based application focusing on managing developmental research. Developmental research relies on the successful management of relations between research projects, research personnel, and families from our communities. For example, researchers need to constantly maintain their participant pool by registering new families, updating existing family info, and tracking their participation history. We also need to manage our research projects and research staff assignments to ensure our projects can be implemented flawlessly.
The success of developmental research involves enormous efforts in managing complex relations among families, labs, research personnel, and projects. Extensive interactions among the stakeholders (e.g., participant recruitment and communicating experimenters) often impose significant challenges to the efficiency of research progress. Despite advancements in technology, a great proportion of developmental labs still rely on manual approaches to manage their research activities, which are both inefficient and prone to human errors. Furthermore, popular research management software is unable to streamline the entire process of developmental research, from scheduling to managing study activities.
To assist the complicated management work in developmental research, we developed the DRDB system. It stores information about research participants, research projects, research personnel, and study schedules with an industry-recognized database standard (MySQL). In addition to storing critical research data, the system is equipped with advanced algorithms, which can automate study schedule management and facilitate communication between families and researchers. The web-based design enables the system can be accessed by multiple researchers from different labs wherever they are whenever they want. This is especially useful during times when we must work remotely.
What’s in the DRDB system?
DRDB includes 3 major categories of data:
- family & children’s demographic information
- lab relation information, including studies, lab members, and lab info
- study appointment information, such as appointment time and related experimenters
How does the DRDB system help recruitment and research management?
DRDB streamlines the recruitment process for developmental research. It stores participant information, tracks the eligibility of infants and children as they age, and assists in identifying and contacting potential participants based on specified criteria.
The system also allows labs to keep track of participant appointments, participation history, and study schedules across the lab. DRDB allows all lab members to access study schedules to ensure participants are not contacted multiple times and appointments are not double-booked.
Access to DRDB
DRDB can be accessed here (must be connected to McMaster VPN if not on McMaster Wifi): Developmental Research Database
Watch the second half of this video for a tutorial on DRDB: DRDB Tutorial
Sharepoint
Sharepoint stores all of the data and documents for the lab. The sharepoint can be accessed using this link: Sharepoint