research_package 0.4.0

A Flutter framework for obtaining informed consent, showing surveys and collecting results.

Research Package

ResearchPackage is a Flutter package for building research study apps on Android and iOS using Flutter.

ResearchPackage is a Flutter implementation of the Apple ResearchKit available for iOS (just like ResearchStack is for Android). The overarching goal of ResearchPackage is to enable developers and researchers to design and build cross-platform (iOS and Android) research applications using the same codebase. The API and UX design of ResearchPackage follows the API and UX of ResearchKit almost 1:1 (with a few adaptations to Flutter, including applying more to a reactive programming model).

ResearchPackage is designed from the ground up to meet the requirements of most scientific research, including capturing participant consent, extensible input tasks, and the security and privacy needs necessary for IRB approval. The main features of ResearchPackage are:

• Obtaining informed consent from participants, including support for a signature.
• Creating surveys and questionnaires with a wide range of answer formats (e.g., likert scale, date pickers, image pickers, etc.), such as the WHO5 survey.

ResearchPackage is part of the overall CACHET Research Platform (CARP) with also provides a Flutter package for mobile and wearable sensing called CARP Mobile Sensing. The CACHET Pulmonary Monitor app shows how mobile sensing can be combined with collection of survery data from users.

ResearchPackage has a series of 8 cognitive tests as part of its library. Some of the cognitive tests are implementations of ReseachKit's "Active Tasks". Detailed information about the test is available online.

Documentation

There is a set of tutorials, describing:

• the overall software architecture of ResearchPackage
• how to create an informed consent flow
• how to define and run user surveys
• how to define and run cognitive tests

The ResearchPackage Flutter API is available (and maintained) as part of the package release at pub.dev.

Example Application

There is an example app which demonstrates the different features of ResearchPackage as implemented in a Flutter app.

Who is backing this project?

Research Package is made by the Copenhagen Center for Health Technology (CACHET) and is an important component in the CACHET Research Platform (CARP), which is used in a number of applications and studies. The current project maintainers are Barnabás Homola, Mads Vedel Saaby Christensen, and Jakob E. Bardram.

How can I contribute?

We are more than happy to take contributions and feedback. Use the Issues page to file an issue or feature request. Besides general help for enhacement and quality assurance (bug fixing), we welcome input on new answer types.

License

This software is copyright (c) Copenhagen Center for Health Technology (CACHET) at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). This software is available 'as-is' under a MIT license.