Mica is a powerful software application used to create web portals for epidemiological study consortia.

Using Mica, consortia can build personalised web sites for publishing their research activities and their membership. Mica includes many domain-specific features such as study catalogues, data dictionary browsers, on-line data access request forms, community tools (forums, events, news) and others. Moreover, Mica includes a powerful data search engine that allows authenticated researchers to perform distributed queries on the content of each individual study data collection hosted by the OBiBa Opal database software.

Mica Distribution is the quickest way to get you up and running with Drupal Mica. It includes the latest versions of Drupal core, Mica modules, and the other modules it depends on. During installation, Mica Distribution provides basic configuration of the Mica modules.

Mica is developped by OBiBa.

Installation

Installation of Mica Debian package (recommended)

OBiBa Debian repository is available at http://pkg.obiba.org.

Installation of Mica tarball

Download latest release and follow the instructions from http://drupal.org/documentation/install

What Mica Can Do for You Now

The current version of Mica allows you to have a study consortium web site out-of-the-box.

Studies

Each study is described in a same standard way that can be easily customized to reflect consortium specificities. However, Mica suggests by default a list of important study characteristics that should be considered if there is an aim for the consortium to participate in data harmonization projects with other consortia or studies.

  • Custom study description pages as needed
  • Advanced study search (full-text, faceted search)
Datasets

The consortium makes available different datasets to the research community. Each dataset is described by a comprehensive data dictionary which gives details on each available variable. Moreover, Mica includes for studies using the OBiBa Opal software as main database solution, a distributed query engine that enables researchers to obtain real-time aggregated reports on the exact number of participant with specific characteristics or phenotypes. Mica makes even possible to run remotely some regression analyses on the real study data using the DataSHIELD method (Wolfson M et al. Int J Epidemiol. 2010) which is implemented both in Mica and Opal.

  • Describe datasets, their scientific purposes and studies that contribute to each of them
  • Perform real-time queries on the datasets (in combination to Opal) to count number of participants matching your research criteria
  • Perform DataSHIELD queries
Data Access
  • Present your Data Access Policy
  • Manage Data Access Requests from submission to approval
  • Extend default Data Access Request form to match your Consortium needs
  • Present the Data Access Committee members
Research
  • Present the approved Data Access Requests
  • Use Projects to constitute working groups
  • Present the scientific Publications of Consortium members
Community
  • Present Contacts and Institutions that are part of the Consortium
  • Use Blogs to allow studies to contributes to the life of the Consortium
  • Use Forums to offer a discussion space to your members
  • Announce meetings and events
Documents
  • Present Consortium documents with a full description and make them available for download
Administration
  • Administer your Consortium web portal from the website itself
  • Manage users and roles
  • Define permissions on any kind of content
  • Custom style and page layout
Supporting organizations: 

Project information

Releases