Introduction

Publishing new data to the research community is an important role of the Data Resource Center. The Data Resource Center does this through releasing finalized data for one or more new or existing studies. A release will first be invoked then staged for publication whence it will be reviewed and published. Once a release has been published, the new data will be available to end users.

The Study Creator helps the Data Resource Center perform releases by tracking and automating some steps in the process and by doing so aims to: - Ensure consistency of the release process - Reduce liklihood of publishing faulty data - Create an auditable history of past data changes and publications

Service Coordination

There are several services which deliver and act on data in Kids First. Many of these services rely on internal operations to process new data and prepare it for distribution to the end users. The Data Resource Center has formalized steps in its release process to notify, using a standard specification, downstream services. Any service that is deemed critical to the distribution of new data is expected to accept these notifications and respond with the current status of processing the data. In this way, the Data Resource Center may ensure that all necessary services have correctly processed the new data before publishing it for general consumption.

Versioning

The Data Resource Center includes version numbers with each release it makes to assist in auditing. Release version numbers follow semantic versioning with major releases signifying data changes that impact all studies (such as moving or addition of data fields). Minor versions encompass any changes or additions to one or more studies. Patch versions are reserved for releases being staged or unpublished, including failed releases. A release will begin its life as an incremental patch but will be updated to bump the major or minor version and reset the patch number upon being published.