Publish with Mica

What is Mica?

Mica is a powerful software application used to create data web portals for large-scale epidemiological studies or multiple-study consortia. Mica2 is the successor of Mica.

Mica helps studies to provide scientifically robust data visibility and web presence without significant information technology effort. Mica provides a structured description of consortia, studies, annotated and searchable data dictionaries, and data access request management.

It is built upon a multitier architecture consisting of a RESTful application server and clients for instance:

• The Mica Server Web Application from which one can edit information pertaining to indiviudal studies and datasets, and administer secure connections to the other applications of OBiBa software stack.
  
• The Mica Drupal Client is used to create and display web data portals. It is built upon the Drupal content management system by means of Drupal modules.
  

Features

Using Mica2, studies and consortia can administer and display information about themselves and about their constituants, this is:

Mica2 provides a standardized way to describe both networks and the studies that constitute them.

Mica2 study catalogue includes:

• A list of important study description default characteristics that can be customized to reflect specific requirements,
• Support for longitudinal study design with data collection events, sub-populations and recruitment timelines.

Studies makes available different datasets to the research community. Mica2 provides:

• A standard menu for its data resources,
• Advanced variable search functionality using facets,
• A detailed description of a dataset including a comprehensive dictionary of all the variables provided by the dataset.

Importantly, Mica2 does not store any record-level data itself. Instead, Mica2 includes for studies using the OBiBa Opal software as main secured database solution, a distributed query engine that enables authorized researchers to obtain real-time aggregated reports on the exact number of participant with specific characteristics or phenotypes. The same engine is used to obtain summary statistics on each variable. Using this approach, no individual-level data passes through Mica2, yet researchers can assess the suitability of a dataset for their needs.

Mica2 provides a way to edit forms that allows a study to handle access requests electronically. Using this feature, single studies or consortia can:

• Present their Data Access Policy,
• Manage Data Access Requests from submission to approval,
• Extend default Data Access Request form to match their needs,
• Present the Data Access Committee members.

With Mica2, you can:

• Administer your Consortium web portal from the website itself,
• Manage users and roles,
• Define permissions on any kind of content.

The web portal itself is a Drupal based application. Drupal Mica modules and theme are available to integrate Drupal with Mica server. The pages provided by these modules and theme are based on templates that can be overriden to match your exact needs. Many settings are also available from the Mica modules administration interface.