Authors:
Peter E. Dewitt
1
and
Tellen D. Bennett
2
Affiliations:
1
University of Colorado Denver, United States
;
2
University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado, United States
Keyword(s):
Data Security, Collaborative Authoring, Reproducible Reports, Workflow, Software.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Affective Computing
;
Biomedical Engineering
;
Confidentiality and Data Security
;
Databases and Datawarehousing
;
Health Information Systems
;
Software Systems in Medicine
Abstract:
Sensitive data and collaborative projects pose challenges for reproducible computational research. We present
a workflow based on literate programming and distributed version control to produce well-documented and
dynamic documents collaboratively authored by a team composed of members with varying data access privileges.
Data are stored on secure institutional network drives and incorporated into projects using a feature
of the Git version control system: submodules. Code to analyze data and write text is managed on public
collaborative development environments. This workflow supports collaborative authorship while simultaneously
protecting sensitive data. The workflow is designed to be inexpensive and is implemented primarily
with a variety of free and open-source software. Work products can be abstracts, manuscripts, posters, slide
decks, grant applications, or other documents. This approach is adaptable to teams of varying size in other
collaborative situations.