title: The Ark: a customizable web-based data management tool for health and medical research.
abstract: The Ark is an open-source web-based tool that allows researchers to manage health and medical research data for humans and animals without specialized database skills or programming expertise. The system provides data management for core research information including demographic, phenotype, biospecimen and pedigree data, in addition to supporting typical investigator requirements such as tracking participant consent and correspondence, whilst also being able to generate custom data exports and reports. The Ark is 'study generic' by design and highly configurable via its web interface, allowing researchers to tailor the system to the specific data management requirements of their study.
  
  
  
  Source code for The Ark can be obtained freely from the website https://github.com/The-Ark-Informatics/ark/ . The source code can be modified and redistributed under the terms of the GNU GPL v3 license. Documentation and a pre-configured virtual appliance can be found at the website http://sphinx.org.au/the-ark/ .
  
  
  
  adrianb@unimelb.edu.au.
  
  
  
  Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, The University of Melbourne, Carlton, 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: Adrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bickerstaffe
authors.affiliation: Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, The University of Melbourne, Carlton, 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: Thilina
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ranaweera
authors.affiliation: Curtin UWA Centre for Genetic Origins of Health and Disease, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, 6102, Australia.|Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, 6000, Australia.
authors.forename: Travis
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Endersby
authors.affiliation: Curtin UWA Centre for Genetic Origins of Health and Disease, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, 6102, Australia.|Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, 6000, Australia.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ellis
authors.affiliation: Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, The University of Melbourne, Carlton, 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: Sanjaya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maddumarachchi
authors.affiliation: Genetics and Epidemiology, Lions Eye Institute, Nedlands, 6009, Australia.
authors.forename: George E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Gooden
authors.affiliation: Curtin UWA Centre for Genetic Origins of Health and Disease, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, 6102, Australia.|Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, 6000, Australia.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: White
authors.affiliation: Curtin UWA Centre for Genetic Origins of Health and Disease, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, 6102, Australia.|Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, 6000, Australia.
authors.forename: Eric K
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Moses
authors.affiliation: Centre for Eye Research Australia, Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, East Melbourne, 3002, Australia.
authors.forename: Alex W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Hewitt
authors.affiliation: Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, The University of Melbourne, Carlton, 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: John L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Hopper
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000379:methods*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D010375:Pedigree; D012984:Software