In an earlier entry, I mentioned that the technological center of a systematic review is CRUD – providing a way for the user to create, read, update, and delete information contained in published reports of randomized controlled trials.
Although R isn’t the best underlying technology for this, it’s not impossible. This web page by Dean Attali describes how to mimic a Google form with R and Shiny.
When I first encountered Dean’s article, I didn’t even know about Google Forms. Google appears to have designed this app primarily for collecting data from user surveys, so it’s not entirely clear that there’s an easy way for a user to edit information previously entered. The data is saved in Google Sheets.
There are also form plugins for WordPress. In general, these save the information the user enters in the WordPress MySQL database. User data editing appears possible. I’m looking more closely at the one called Formidable Forms.
Finally, I noticed my web host’s CPanel offers to install two server-based form programs, Form Tools and phpFormGenerator. Those could also have the potential to solve some issues here.
So many choices. So much to learn. So little time.