About
SODA is a cross-platform desktop software that helps researchers prepare and share FAIR peripheral nervous system (PNS) related data and models using the SPARC Data Structure (SDS) and the SPARC Portal. Since 2021, SODA has been installed on over 1300 computers, empowering researchers worldwide.
What is SPARC?
- The NIH's Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions (SPARC) program seeks to accelerate development of therapeutic devices that modulate electrical activity in nerves to improve organ function.
What are the FAIR SPARC Data Guidelines?
- All SPARC-funded researchers must curate their datasets following the SPARC Data Standards (SDS) and share them openly on the Pennsieve data platform as per their funding agreement with SPARC.
What are the challenges?
- The guidelines are very exhaustive to maximize FAIRness of SPARC datasets but are challenging and time-consuming for researchers to implement.
What does SODA do?
- SODA combines intuitive user interfaces and automation such that researchers can efficiently and accurately curate their SPARC datasets.
Impact on SPARC datasets
Trusted by researchers all over the world
35+ TB
Data Curated and Shared
432k+
Files Curated and Shared
234
Datasets Published to Sparc.Science
2158
Downloads
Development Approach
SODA is distributed as an open-source application with an MIT License. Anyone is free to fork our GitHub repository and make their own changes if they would like. If you would like to submit a feature modification, or feature suggestion, please feel free to submit an issue on the repository.
Funding
SODA is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s SPARC program. The funding was initially provided as a supplement to an existing SPARC award at CalMI2during the first phase of development before now having a standalone award.
Research Partners
SODA for SPARC connects with several resources developed by the SPARC Data Resource Center (DRC) and we therefore collaborate actively with the DRC teams throughout our development process.
Timeline
December 2018 - Birth of SODA
The first prototype of SODA for SPARC is developed during the 2018 NIH SPARC Hackathon where it won the People's Choice Award.
May 2019 - Aug 2020 - Phase I development
The base framework of the software is developed and support for high-level requirements of the SDS are integrated.
Sept 2020 - Aug 2021 - Phase II development
The user interface is upgraded to become more intuitive, support is included for additional elements of the SDS, and the transition of SPARC from Blackfynn to Pennsieve is achieved.
Sept 2021 - Aug 2022 - Phase III development
Support is provided for the evolving SPARC guidelines. A Guided Mode is implement to further streamline data curation and sharing. Integration with the SDS validator is initiated.
Sept 2022 - Aug 2023 - Phase IV development
The SPARC data curation and sharing worflows will be further streamlined. Full integration will be achieved with the SDS validator and the new Pennsieve upload method. Support will be provided for the submission of non-SPARC data.
Sept 2023 - Aug 2024 - Phase V development
The SODA team improved the user interfaces of SODA and enhanced workflows to further simplify data submission for non-SPARC users and worked with the MBF team for integrated MicroFile+ and Biolucida with SODA (and more).
Sept 2024 - Aug 2025 - Phase VI development
In the final phase of development the SODA team is focusing on bringing the SDS 3.0 to SODA and overall enhancing the user experience by simplifying UIs and presentation.
Impact
SODA: Software to Support the Curation and Sharing of FAIR Autonomic Nervous System Data
Citation
Marroquin, C., Clark, J., Portillo, D., Soundarajan, S., Ngo, T., & Patel, B. (2024). SODA: Software to Support the Curation and Sharing of FAIR Autonomic Nervous System Data. Journal of Open Source Software, 9(100), 6140, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.06140
SPARC Data Structure: Rationale and Design of a FAIR Standard for Biomedical Research Data
Citation
Bandrowski, A., Grethe, J. S., Pilko, A., Gillespie, T., Pine, G., Patel, B., Surles-Zeigler, M., & Martone, M. E. (2021). SPARC Data Structure: Rationale and Design of a FAIR Standard for Biomedical Research Data. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. BioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.10.430563
Sharing is Caring - Making SPARC data FAIR with SODA
Citation
SPARC Data Structure: Rationale and Design of a FAIR Standard for Biomedical Research Data. (2021). SPARC. https://sparc.science/news-and-events/community-spotlight/success-stories/sharing-is-caring-making-sparc-data-fair-with-soda
SPARC: SODA, an interactive software for curating SPARC datasets
Citation
Patel, B., Srivastava, H., Aghasafari, P., & Helmer, K. (2020). SPARC: SODA, an interactive software for curating SPARC datasets. The FASEB Journal, 34(S1), 1–1. https://doi.org/10.1096/fasebj.2020.34.s1.02483
SODA (Software to Organize Data Automatically) for SPARC
Citation
SODA. (started 2019). https://github.com/fairdataihub/SODA-for-SPARC (Development status: Active)