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Survalytics: An Open-Source Cloud-Integrated Experience Sampling, Survey, and Analytics and Metadata Collection Module for Android Operating System Apps

BACKGROUND: We describe here Survalytics, a software module designed to address two broad areas of need. The first area is in the domain of surveys and app analytics: developers of mobile apps in both academic and commercial environments require information about their users, as well as how the apps...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: O'Reilly-Shah, Vikas, Mackey, Sean
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications Inc. 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4912681/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27261155
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.5397
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author O'Reilly-Shah, Vikas
Mackey, Sean
author_facet O'Reilly-Shah, Vikas
Mackey, Sean
author_sort O'Reilly-Shah, Vikas
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: We describe here Survalytics, a software module designed to address two broad areas of need. The first area is in the domain of surveys and app analytics: developers of mobile apps in both academic and commercial environments require information about their users, as well as how the apps are being used, to understand who their users are and how to optimally approach app development. The second area of need is in the field of ecological momentary assessment, also referred to as experience sampling: researchers in a wide variety of fields, spanning from the social sciences to psychology to clinical medicine, would like to be able to capture daily or even more frequent data from research subjects while in their natural environment. OBJECTIVE: Survalytics is an open-source solution for the collection of survey responses as well as arbitrary analytic metadata from users of Android operating system apps. METHODS: Surveys may be administered in any combination of one-time questions and ongoing questions. The module may be deployed as a stand-alone app for experience sampling purposes or as an add-on to existing apps. The module takes advantage of free-tier NoSQL cloud database management offered by the Amazon Web Services DynamoDB platform to package a secure, flexible, extensible data collection module. DynamoDB is capable of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act compliant storage of personal health information. RESULTS: The provided example app may be used without modification for a basic experience sampling project, and we provide example questions for daily collection of blood glucose data from study subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The module will help researchers in a wide variety of fields rapidly develop tailor-made Android apps for a variety of data collection purposes.
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spelling pubmed-49126812016-06-28 Survalytics: An Open-Source Cloud-Integrated Experience Sampling, Survey, and Analytics and Metadata Collection Module for Android Operating System Apps O'Reilly-Shah, Vikas Mackey, Sean JMIR Mhealth Uhealth Original Paper BACKGROUND: We describe here Survalytics, a software module designed to address two broad areas of need. The first area is in the domain of surveys and app analytics: developers of mobile apps in both academic and commercial environments require information about their users, as well as how the apps are being used, to understand who their users are and how to optimally approach app development. The second area of need is in the field of ecological momentary assessment, also referred to as experience sampling: researchers in a wide variety of fields, spanning from the social sciences to psychology to clinical medicine, would like to be able to capture daily or even more frequent data from research subjects while in their natural environment. OBJECTIVE: Survalytics is an open-source solution for the collection of survey responses as well as arbitrary analytic metadata from users of Android operating system apps. METHODS: Surveys may be administered in any combination of one-time questions and ongoing questions. The module may be deployed as a stand-alone app for experience sampling purposes or as an add-on to existing apps. The module takes advantage of free-tier NoSQL cloud database management offered by the Amazon Web Services DynamoDB platform to package a secure, flexible, extensible data collection module. DynamoDB is capable of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act compliant storage of personal health information. RESULTS: The provided example app may be used without modification for a basic experience sampling project, and we provide example questions for daily collection of blood glucose data from study subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The module will help researchers in a wide variety of fields rapidly develop tailor-made Android apps for a variety of data collection purposes. JMIR Publications Inc. 2016-06-03 /pmc/articles/PMC4912681/ /pubmed/27261155 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.5397 Text en ©Vikas O'Reilly-Shah, Sean Mackey. Originally published in JMIR Mhealth and Uhealth (http://mhealth.jmir.org), 03.06.2016. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR mhealth and uhealth, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://mhealth.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
O'Reilly-Shah, Vikas
Mackey, Sean
Survalytics: An Open-Source Cloud-Integrated Experience Sampling, Survey, and Analytics and Metadata Collection Module for Android Operating System Apps
title Survalytics: An Open-Source Cloud-Integrated Experience Sampling, Survey, and Analytics and Metadata Collection Module for Android Operating System Apps
title_full Survalytics: An Open-Source Cloud-Integrated Experience Sampling, Survey, and Analytics and Metadata Collection Module for Android Operating System Apps
title_fullStr Survalytics: An Open-Source Cloud-Integrated Experience Sampling, Survey, and Analytics and Metadata Collection Module for Android Operating System Apps
title_full_unstemmed Survalytics: An Open-Source Cloud-Integrated Experience Sampling, Survey, and Analytics and Metadata Collection Module for Android Operating System Apps
title_short Survalytics: An Open-Source Cloud-Integrated Experience Sampling, Survey, and Analytics and Metadata Collection Module for Android Operating System Apps
title_sort survalytics: an open-source cloud-integrated experience sampling, survey, and analytics and metadata collection module for android operating system apps
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4912681/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27261155
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.5397
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