Services

Information Technology

ISR maintains both a robust and flexible project development environment capable of supporting multiple facets of each research initiative including: data collection and transfer, sample management, analysis and reporting. These systems are securely linked through a high-speed LAN allowing interoperability between servers, desktops and remote laptops and tablets. The individual components of ISR's data center take advantage of its core strengths:

• centralized data collection platform
• Web-based application development
• support for a wide range of development options, hardware and software, for tasks such as In-person data collection management, Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) as well as the creation of customized PC-based tools and utilities

Resources

Survey Development
CASES 5.5 (Computer-Assisted Survey Execution System) UC Berekely	CATI, CAPI, CAWI, A-CASI & DDE survey instrument development
Qualtrics	Web survey development tool
TeleSage Automated Telephone Survey System	Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR)
Advanced Application Development
Perl/Microsoft Visual Basic	Data manipulation, application development, systems management
HTML/Javascript/PHP/ColdFusion	Web design and application development
Database Management
MySQL/SQL Server/IBM Informix/Microsoft Access/Microsoft Visual Foxpro	Relational database management systems (RDMS)
Web-based platforms/development tools
LAMP (software bundle)	Open source web platform consisting of Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl/PHP/Python
Tomcat	Open source web server and servlet container
Drupal	Open source content management system (CMS)
Adobe Creative Suite	Suite of graphic design, video editing, and web development applications made by Adobe Systems
Statistical data and analysis systems
SPSS, SUDAAN & SAS	Statistical analysis, data management (case selection, file reshaping, creating derived data) and data documentation
SDA	Survey documentation and analysis

Security

Due to our affiliation with the Veterans Administration and the VA Twins Registry, ISR abides by the policies, procedures and directives regarding the protection of human subjects and the use of and disclosure of individually-identifiable information (HIPAA). The Institute was last audited on September 2011 and was found to meet these requirements. Currently, ISR is managing VETR data collection projects for both Washington University in St. Louis and Massachusetts General Hospital

All data used by ISR is stored within and transmitted on a private network. Any data designated to be electronically transmitted to or from the Institute's secure, private network requires encryption technology as standard protocol. Due to the variety of client requirements, ISR supports a variety of secure electronic transfer security protocols including Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2.

All computer systems are protected from viruses and other malware Symantec Endpoint Protection centrally managed by Temple University's Office on Information Security. ISR's network is further protected by controlled firewalls and email filtering technology.

All user credentials and associated access permissions are subject to the controls and standards maintained by the Temple University Office of Information Security. In particular, passwords must meet stringent requirements for length and complexity and must be changed on a regular basis. Project access is restricted to authorized members defined within each project team. Successful authentication for each user determines the user's level of permission and access to information.