Data Standards for HEAL

Collective Board Meeting Summary: The potential scope of a HEAL Working Group on data standards was discussed. Evaluating all of the standards that come into question and understanding whether they are mappable to each other, understanding and clustering data types across HEAL, understanding the needs of and challenges facing researchers which make harmonization compelling, identifying opportunities to share tools and resources already in use with the broader community, defining a driving research question or opportunity to conduct retrospective analysis, and considering harmonization strategies for different stages in the research lifecycle are some examples. While there was no consensus on the best place to start, there was consensus that concrete objectives with aims and set timelines will be critical and that this will benefit future studies more than those already underway.