Open source in clinical research will be the topic of a panel discussion at the upcoming DIA Annual Meeting June 24th in Boston.

Join us for an interesting discussion on open source clinical trial software the DIA Annual Meeting June 24th in Boston. This presentation will evaluate how open, standards-based software can alleviate the challenges of flexibility, interoperability, and cost in regulated clinical research environments. Presenters will discuss the unique advantages and challenges in developing and using open source software for tasks such as electronic data capture, and provide an overview of other open source technologies currently being used in clinical trials.

As clinical research becomes more informatics intensive, organizations are looking towards transparent, standards-based systems to better meet challenges of flexibility, interoperability, compliance, and cost. As part of this, Open Source Software (OSS) is becoming a key IT component in the clinical research enterprise. OSS, defined loosely as software that allows programmers to openly read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, can exist in several contexts. It can serve as a platform or operating system (Linux), as development tools, (compilers and IDEs such as GCC or Eclipse), as infrastructure applications (Apache web server, caGrid), or as user-facing applications (Firefox, Alfresco, OpenClinica, R). Because it is so diverse, chances are high that OSS is being used somewhere in every sizeable organization. The core objective of enterprise IT is to solve business needs at minimum risk and cost to the organization.

The DIA session will be in a panel format, led by Cal Collins, CEO of Akaza Research, LLC. Other panelists will include Darin Morley, Director of Application Development at PharPoint Research; Mark Paul, CEO of Statworks, Inc., and Brian Shoemaker, Principal Consultant with ShoeBar Associates.