The DMSS is a database system that provides full functionality for controlled data entry and data management.
It can be thought of as a shell providing all the necessary functionality for sound data management in scientific studies in the field of psychiatry, biomedics and psychology.
DMSS was originally build with INFORMIX-4GL™. In 1998 work has finished to rebuild the system as an application running under Windows 95™ or Windows NT™. The system has been completely reengineered using Sybase Powerbuilder™ and Sybase SQLAnywhere™. DMSS also runs under Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista.
The DMSS features include:
Double data entry with checking and logging of differences |
Separate functionality of data-entry personnel and data-management personnel allowing to separate data-entry from data modification |
By item possibility to enter data entry comments, to enter anything that needs to be notified and is not foreseen in the item itself. |
Complete logging of data modification |
Study design driven, including automatic presentation of scheduled measurements. |
Includes status information on measurements (i.e.: measurement not present, measurement present but no data et cetera). |
Reports on completeness of data entry. |
Data quality and validity reports are available based on SQL-statements checking ranges and data consistencies within as well between measurements. |
Fully automatic building of SPSS® data and syntax files including variable labels, value labels, specifications of missing data, and compute statements for instance for scale values. Building of files can be done on case basis as well as on measurement basis. |
Originated in 1989, DMSS has evolved to a mature system that has been successfully used in
research projects by:
The system has been designed in analogy of the explorer. You can see this study in 2 locations.
The right pane gives an overview of the status of the measurements that are planned on the Baseline assessment of subject 005, which is selected in the left pane. From the right upper pane, measurements can easily be pickup to enter or modify data.
Actual data entry or modification is done in the data window. It uses tabbed pages to provide quick access to:
This is how it looks like with the Data tab is selected:
The user did select the first item of which the description is given as '1e Voorletter' (first initial).
In the upper left corner of the window there are VCR controls to provide scrolling, depending on what the user has chosen, to either the same instrument on another assessment or the next instrument on the same assessment. In this case the user has chosen to only see the 'Demografische en Aanmeldingsgegevens So he is looking at the first instrument of the one selected.
In the next view, the user has selected the tab Modified Data.
In this view the data manager gets an overview of the data he already has modified. If there are no DE comments, Text fields, or Modified Data, no tabs appear, so it is immediately clear whether these addintional data exist for the measurement.
In case you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us.