READ ME: SPARC Technical Business Requirements

The current stable branch can be found here: https://github.com/sparc-request/sparc-request/releases/latest

SPARC (Services, Pricing, and Applications for Research Center) is a web based research management system that integrates research and clinical care workflows with a focus on service request catalog, billing compliance, proposal and budget development, work fulfillment data collection, invoicing and billing, and impact data through grants and publication associations.

The system is open source with the capability to encompass multiple institutions, institutional entities, and service providers and programs.

The intuitive user interface derives from a concept of online shopping. A quick click budget template with preselected defaults, researcher dashboard and notification system linked with an email client, pick lists to pre-populate fields for project and personnel data previously entered into the system are just some of the investigator-driven features of this system. The ability to choose research and clinical services from across multiple institutions and institutional entities (such as research centers, hospitals, and physician and advanced practice nurse practice plans), designate a funding source for each service, upload pertinent documents, and request and obtain review of the requested services provides an integrated platform that can inform sponsored grants and contracts budget development and negotiation and provide a consolidated service request process for all research projects.

This software is subject to a 3-Clause BSD License as further seen in LICENSE file.

SPARC Technical Criteria

System Authentication

Requirements when using enterprise credentials to log in:

• Supports Shibboleth with SAML 2.0

• eppn is currently configured as the primary authentication attributes.  Other attributes like cn, surname, and email are also required.

• Web application where DUO would have to be managed by another application/configuration.  It only interacts with Shibboleth through modified header information.

• Local access can be turned on/off via configuration.

APIs

• API token generation for external applications to connect with SPARC is currently only utilized for communication with SPARC’s partner application, SPARCFulfillment. 

• Uses a secure token authentication mechanism. 

• Potential utilization by other applications is possible. Token generation documentation resides with those applications.

  • Note: customized integration with other applications is an option. For example, SPARC has built in capabilities to turn on/off integrations with Oncore & Epic. MUSC also integrates with a mirror of our eIRB data and our local Research Master ID through RINS.

Inclusion of Standard, Institutional Terminology

• Data terminology & naming convention is unique to SPARC. There is not a standard ontology.

• Imports and data migration may occur with field mapping to SPARC ontology. There is no data import automation.

Enterprise Data Platform/Operational Data Store

Requirements when data is included into external, enterprise-wide data platforms for reporting and analysis:

• Full data model/data dictionary documentation does not currently exist. However, documentation for data attributes can be retrieved using command line tools.

• Only data within SPARCRequest can be deleted, which has a recorded, audit log of all changes (e.g., when, what, who).

• Bulk data changes do not occur automatically.  Some changes can be manually run as necessary only by an administrator via command line. 

Enterprise Data Network Connectivity

• Ruby on Rails application.  As such, it runs using Phusion Passenger and Apache.

• Sole Network requirements include access to its underlying MySQL database (can be hosted with application or separately), access to the outside network via SSL to serve the application to the public.  It can be kept within the DMZ for internal network use only or firewall rules can be put in place to allow external network use.