This wiki contains information relating to DataSHIELD - both about the different softwares that are involved, and around the community that has developed around the software. Further information about DataSHIELD can be found in the About section.
More information at the bottom.
All wiki's have a SandBox.
The DataSHIELD Community is organised into Themes; there are six altogether, three relating to technical aspects of the project and three relating to process aspects of the project:
Themes are the way the day-to-day work of the community is organised. Themes are classified as either 'Process' or 'Tech' related - the Theme Leads belong to the relevant Core Group as noted below.
Themes have dedicated sections of the wiki related to their activities, where each Theme states its agreed purpose, working practices and how it will communicate with other Themes. The Themes also each have a dedicated section of the forum, which should be used as the primary means for communication.
There are two Core Groups for the DataSHIELD community: the Tech and Process Core Groups. The primary objective of the Core Groups is to provide coordination across the different Themes. The Technical Core Group is responsible for overseeing the Themes which are categorised as having a predominantly technical purpose, whereas the Process Core Group focuses on overseeing Themes with a non-technical purpose. These bodies have responsibility for ensuring that Themes are complementary to each other and do not overlap or duplicate work. They are also responsible for arbitrating decisions or conflicts between different Themes within their domain; problems may be escalated to the Steering Committee if required.
The Steering Committee provides overall leadership to the DataSHIELD Community and has day to day responsibility for the project. More information is provided on the following page:
The principle softwares are:
The community is governed according to the Constitution which was agreed at the DataSHIELD conference in 2022. The latest version is available to download from the Constitution page.
One of the core concepts behind the Community organisation is transparency. Individual Voting Members and members of Core Groups and the Steering Committee are publicly listed:
A wiki is a special kind of website that provides a place for collaborative working. Anyone (with a login) can edit it - for example, add or remove content, move pages around and change the organisation, upload additional media (images, other types of file attachments).
This particular wiki uses a software called wiki.js
. It is a very powerful piece of software with lots of capabilities that you can read about on the wiki.js website, so at first might seem a bit overwhelming. Do not be scared! There is plenty of help available online: as a first step, you might like to read the wiki.js
documentation.
We have created a help page specifically for the DataSHIELD wiki. You will find some useful pointers there, along with an FAQ. If you don't find the answer to your question, you might like to add it to the list - and perhaps someone will answer it! Or maybe you're able to help respond to one of the questions that is currently without an answer, or improve an already existing answer...
NB, If you don't yet have a login for this wiki, please contact one of the Theme Leads (you can read more about the Themes below) who should be able to help you get an account.