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naccdata / uniform-data-set

Repository for REDCap artifacts for the UDS and associated forms
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Decide on convention for REDCap exports #6

Open bjkeller opened 2 years ago

bjkeller commented 2 years ago

For UDS, we have pushed the XML for the base project that was adapted for NACC from a version of the U.Michigan UDSv3 project. This file includes some details on licensing and copyright that should be in the final file, but that would be lost in a data dictionary export.

The point of this issue is to request discussion on conventions for REDCap exports:

pbchase commented 2 years ago

@bjkeller, I have been considering the same problem. I don't think it's possible to merge a REDCap XML export into an existing project. You can load exported components of a REDCap project, but not the whole XML enchilada as it were. e.g., you can build a project by any means--XML file or otherwise--then update the data dictionary, arms, events, form-event relationships, even some portions of the survey settings.

I expect we will need both forms for the people that want the entire new project to be built and people that want a component to update. I see code in our future if we are to get both forms and be able to trust that the two different forms match. One of my developers--Kyle Chesney--is working tirelessly on this task. He wants it for development work; my REDCap Admin, Taryn Stoffs, wants it for cloning changes into training projects for Study Coordinators; they both want it for pre-upgrade testing. Kyle's work will become part of our soon-to-be-published project, redcapcustodian.

I expect we will be able to contribute RScript that can be run manually at project export time to export all the project components and the XML as a collection of files, saving them as the standard names into a configured folder. That could make us but a commit and a push away from sharing a single coherent set of files.

Jreade89 commented 2 years ago

@pbchase, as far as I understand that is correct - XML imports will only work for new REDCap projects, not edit/update existing. It's for that reason I agree that having both XML and .csv Data Dictionary would be best to have, if possible @bjkeller.