metamodeling forms

a study period reportDenise Warzel, NCICBIIT

Jim Davies, Charles Crichton, Andrew Tsui, James Welch,Steve Harris* Department of Computer Science, Oxford

Daniel Abler, CERN

agenda

• why might we need one• what instances already exist• what are their common features• what one might look like• what would be its scope • where do we go next

motivation

• specification– I want this data to be collected

• interoperability– we should be collecting this data– we have collected this kind of data before

• documentation– this is how this data was collected– no, this is what this data means

motivation …

• discovery and reuse – of data

• was any data like this collected?

– of form designs • can I save some time here?• is there some way of collecting this kind of data that is validated?

• model driven software engineering – I need to guarantee that my system collects the data I have

described– I need bespoke functionality, not bespoke software– I want my software to be more general

examples – in paper

• euro QoL• TCGA follow-up form (NCI, partial specification)• business process templates

examples - electronic

• open clinica/redcap• slot extensions in EAP software• caDSR• CDISC ODM• HL7 CDA• DDI 3.x

Field static field runtime control logicpresentation

Exception handling re-use User management other

Field definitions (Questions,

Value domain)

Selection of items from

value domain

(one, multiple, number)

arbitrary field

annotation

data constraints/validation

pre-population

of data fields

skip logic execution order

including graphics*/multimedia

**

for validation

can value pairs be

specified by look-up,

e.g. web-service?

elements are

versionable

Form roles* / fine

grained user access control**

attributing users to set

of user

configurable form level metadata

audit record signature

all have some some way of expressing multiplicity of fields//tables, most have

multilanguage support, 'mandatory' flag for fields.

all have grouping

none of the models

allows to specify

accessibility options like

voice or braille

none of the models

provides discrepancy manageme

nt that is configurable through

model

all form elements

are referencable, at least internally

none has (clearly

defined) form roles

or fine grained

user access control, ,

not possible to attribute

users to different

sets

Documentation

CDISC-ODM y ? ?*y*/n**/?*** ?*/?** y y*"/y** ?*/n** y some y ?*/n** n n y y

DDI y ? ?*?*/?**/?*** ?*/?** y ?*/n** ?*/y** n n y ?*/n** ? n ? ?

eDCI y n y*/n**/n*** n*/n** n y*/n** y*/n** n n n n*/n** n n n n

Generation

OpenClinica y y ny*/?**/n*** y*/n** y y*"/n** n*/n** y n n n*/n** n n n n

RedCap ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?*/?** ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

CancerGrid y n nn*/n**/n*** n*/n** y n*^/n** n*/n** n n n n*/n** n n n n

caBig Forms y n nn*/n**/n*** n*/n** n n*^/n** n*/n** n n y n*/n** n n n n

* = provide some annotation capabilitiy, e.g. concept reference, external code list; but not arbitrary

* = for single field

* = fixed value

* = form elements within forms

** = computed across fields

** = computed from fields

** = forms within study

metamodel elements

• identification• static structure and mapping• validation• control logic/flow

metamodel elements - structure

• questions– typing– instruction text– their relationship to data elements

• sections– their relationships to other sections on other

forms• the container– essential annotation of scope

metamodel elements - validation

• field-level data checking logic– narrows typing information from ISO11179– account for dependencies (scope?)

• default values

metamodel elements - flow

• ordering• paging• skip logic

• to what extent is style in scope?

administered item

terminology data elementsvalue domains models

17

scope

• not a data model or a workflow model– although clearly related

• not an implementation– although it has to encompass XForms, webforms, JSF,

ASP.NET forms …

• maybe has elements of a meta-standard– may specify constraints on DSLs for validation/flow

control/skip logic/workflow

scope …

• will describe how to specialise ISO/IEC11179 data elements into questions

• will specialise ISO/IEC19763 – is it simply another component standard of the family

• will reuse administration modeling from this workgroup

next steps

• approval to begin turning the research into a standard

• advice on how the standard is structured and presented– abstract or concrete metamodel?– multipart?– specification + guidance notes?