Community Discussions

For any and all discussions related to the use of OpenDBM, we encourage all users to host those conversations using the (as of December of 2020) new Discussions feature on Github i.e. the Discussions tab on the OpenDBM Github page. While the Issues tab is for technical issues, we want the Discussions tab to be for everything else. Below are a couple things we want the Discussions tab to be helpful for.

Discussions on variables

We want to foster threads in the Discussions tab that users can contribute to regarding digital biomarker variables that are clinically relevant measures in the context of individual patient populations. For example, if a user is wondering which of OpenDBM’s outputted variables are relevant to, let’s say, Major Depressive Disorder, we want them to be able to turn to a thread in the Discussions tab where they can find that information. Our team will be starting some of these threads ourselves and adding to them as we run into more literature; we encourage other users to also utilize the Discussions tab to create a central repository of such information.

Experimental design

One of the more common types of questions we get from users of OpenDBM is about experimental design and data collection setups. As is briefly discussed in Chapter 6, the nature of the data collection paradigm and the behaviors that are relevant differ depending on the disease state and the goals of the experiment. Not to mention––we are not authorities on experimental design whatsoever. If a user has such questions, we encourage them to post them in the Discussions tab. We certainly will be monitoring it and responding to any questions to the best of our ability, but we also want to allow other researchers to provide their opinions, which we feel will be just as important to take into consideration.