ToolPool Gesundheitsforschung startet

Today, as part of the TMF Annual Congress in Göttingen, the operation of the ToolPool Health Research by TMF is launched. The portal consolidates existing IT tools and is an information offering that supports the establishment and operation of complex IT infrastructures for medical research. "The establishment and operation of such infrastructures are becoming increasingly important tasks. Only they enable reliable research data management, which is now considered a prerequisite for comprehensible scientific work in all scientific disciplines," said Prof. Dr. Otto Rienhoff (Director of the Institute for Medical Informatics, University Medical Center Göttingen and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the TMF), who is leading the TMF Annual Congress on March 14 and 15, 2017, in Göttingen.

In addition to software tools and e-services, the portal operated by the TMF also provides training and consulting services, concepts, and working papers. "The TMF Workgroup significantly advanced the conception of the portal on IT Infrastructure and Quality Management (AG IT-QM)," reported Dr. Martin Lablans, German Cancer Research Center Heidelberg and Deputy Spokesman of the workgroup. "The fact that we have included not only IT tools but also concepts or training is the result of an intensive conceptual phase involving users."

Offers for Different Information Needs

The portal is aimed not only at the IT managers of the projects but also at medical researchers, research managers, and, last but not least, employees of funding organizations. It offers various entry points to meet the different information needs accordingly. In addition to the TMF, product providers include other academic organizations and commercial institutions.

The selection and later evaluation of the products are carried out by the TMF AG IT-QM, thus being in the hands of a democratically constituted body of the academic research community. A catalog of criteria specifies further elements in addition to the types of products, such as information on availability, age, support, price, or previous use of the tools. "It was also very important to us that the products are not just presented, but that users have a say and can influence the contents of the portal," emphasized Lablans. "Therefore, I would like to particularly point out the 'Participate' section. Here, you will find all the information on how to propose a product for inclusion in the ToolPool, write comments, or use other interactive features of the portal."

The TMF's IT Report Forms the Basis

In terms of content, the ToolPool is based on the TMF's annual IT Report, whose 2016 edition was also presented today. Prof. Dr. Ulrich Sax (University Medical Center Göttingen, Spokesman of the AG IT-QM, and member of the TMF's IT Reviewing Board) emphasized the importance of the report as preparatory work for the BMBF's Medical Informatics Initiative. The aim of this initiative is to intensify the exchange and use of data not only between institutions but especially between healthcare and clinical or biomedical research.

"I would like to particularly highlight the chapter on research data management, which we significantly expanded in 2016. Here, we have found that the number of tools that can reliably perform critical analyses is currently very limited," said Sax. Rules must be established for analyzing data. "In addition to data protection and intellectual property aspects, we also need a good basic training of the researchers involved and consulting services from biomedical informatics or biostatistics and epidemiology for quality-assured evaluations." One task of the IT report is also to identify gaps and development needs to provide guidance to funders and developers of tools.

Research Data Management: Common Practices Challenged

Congress President Otto Rienhoff emphasized that information offerings of the TMF, such as the IT Report or the ToolPool Health Research, as well as the consulting services of the TMF workgroups, are extremely important in view of the growing importance of professional research data management. The developments in the field of research data management also challenge many of the established practices of the German scientific system. "We are discussing these fundamental questions today on the first day of the TMF Annual Congress," said Rienhoff. "It is important that research funders increasingly take this change into account and accordingly launch innovative funding measures."