HEAL Data Package (HDP) Tool Demo

Are you a researcher required to share data by a funder or journal? Are you a funder or journal that requires data sharing? Are you a data repository that allows data deposit without repository-facilitated curation? 

We present the HEAL Data Package (HDP) Framework and the HEAL Data Package (HDP) Tool, originally developed to facilitate FAIR data sharing by researchers spanning the wide range of research communities funded by the NIH Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) Initiative.

The HDP Framework provides detailed metadata and data packaging specifications. Its web documentation provides detailed data sharing guidance for authors, removing the burden on journals, funders, and data repositories to develop and maintain such guidance, and making it a one stop shop for researchers asked to share data by many different funders and journals. 

The HDP Tool is a user-friendly desktop software application with a graphical user interface that makes it simple and straightforward for researchers to create a replication data package in compliance with the HDP Framework's detailed metadata specifications. The resulting data package is created as a single zip archive, ready for researchers to upload to a generalist data repository. 

When researchers use the HDP Framework and Tool to create replication data packages, helpful researcher-tailored documentation, functionality and signposting in the graphical user interface of the Tool immediately make it easier for researchers to create and share a replication data package that consists ofhigh quality data and metadata that facilitate results replication and data re-use. 

Resulting data packages adhere to the HDP Framework specifications, consisting of all study files the researcher is able to share (e.g. raw data, processed data, code, protocols, etc.) plus the HDP Framework-specified human- and machine-readable metadata. These metadata conform to a single predictable, standardized, and structured format, and are designed to provide a structured road map for replicating study results using well-described study files, even if not all described study files are shared. Metadata that conforms to a single standard immediately makes it easier for journals, funders, and data repositories to manually review replication packages. The highly specified, structured nature of the HDP Framework-specified metadata makes it machine-actionable and opens the possibility of automating replication package review.