LOCATE: A web application to link open-source clinical software with literature

Abstract

Nowadays, the effective utilization of open-source software could significantly boost both clinical research and practices, especially in resource-poor countries. However, the plethora of open-source clinical software has left many people unable to quickly locate the appropriate one for their needs. Commonly available software quality metrics and software documentation, such as downloads, forks, stars, and readme files, are useful selection criteria, but they only indicate the software quality from the perspective of IT experts. This paper proposes a method that offers additional insights on the performance and effectiveness of clinical software. It links open-source clinical software with relevant scientific literature, such as papers that use case studies of clinical software to reveal the strength and weakness of a given software from the clinical perspective. To interactively present the open-source clinical software and their related literature, we have developed the LOCATE web a pplication that enables users to explore related literature for a given open-source clinical software. Moreover, the peer-review cycle of the application allows users to improve the application by confirming, adding or removing related literature. An evaluation experiment of the five most popular open-source clinical tools demonstrates the potential usefulness of LOCATE.