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Overview
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Castellum is a subject database system developed at the Max Planck Society.
Its main goals are:
- GDPR compliant data protection and security
- Flexibility so it can be used in different organisations
Subject management
Castellum is a central place to collect references to all data related to a
subject, e.g. so it can be deleted on request.
Pseudonym service
Contact details are stored in Castellum so all other databases can work
with pseudonyms instead.
Recruitment
Castellum allows you to find potential subjects from an existing pool using
Appointments
You can manage appointments for test sessions.
What Castellum is not
---------------------
Castellum itself is not meant to store any scientific data. It only stores
information about which studies a subject has participated in as well as the
corresponding pseudonyms.
.. note::
There are only two notable exceptions to this rule: Study participations and
recruitment attributes both contain traces of research data, but are required for
the recruitment process.
Which features get integrated?
------------------------------
We often found it difficult to decide on levels of integration. Therefore, we
want to provide some guidelines for future developers that should be considered
before adding a new feature to Castellum:
* Can the feature be decoupled from communication with subjects? For example we
decided to integrate recruitment because it cannot be decoupled.
* Would the new feature introduce different staff members (user groups)
who would use Castellum only for this reason? For example, we decided against
integrating a *public relations view* on current studies as it would have
introduced staff members who otherwise have nothing to do with subject data.
* Are there well established processes or tools that do not need to be
replaced? Examples might include calendars or room management.
* Are there established protocols to interface with the existing services
instead of reimplementing them? For example, Castellum supports
authentication via a central LDAP service.
* Is it acceptable for users to integrate with external processes manually? For
example, a pseudonym generated by Castellum would usually be entered into a
MRI device by hand.
* Is the feature preventing us from addressing the various needs of different
research institutes?
Rather than applying these questions as strict rules we try to balance them
within the process of reaching a decision.