Analyzing and Checking Databases
I started with my case at the Universitair Medisch Centrum Groningen(UMCG) In the first week of November 2012. I was contracted at the department Bureau Onderzoek, where they coordinate and fund the research that is done at the UMCG. In the research area, publications are a strong measure for quality of the work. Therefore, Bureau Onderzoek makes a list of all publications from the UMCG every year. For this a Microsoft Access database is used and the relevant publications are automatically selected from internet databases Web of Science and Embase. To check if these automatically selected list of references is correct and complete, all researchers from the UMCG are asked to check if their publications are listed correct. My job was to verify whether the modifications, mentioned by the researchers about their publications in 2011, were correct. Therefore I checked the publications mentioned by the researchers on several criteria and strictly documented my findings. When this was done I replied the researchers with my findings. Finally, I added the missing publications to the database and handed over my documentation so colleagues could make the remaining necessary modifications to some publications in the database.
The last part of my case I spend on investigating a CORSA-database which was taken in use recently by Bureau Onderzoek. The interface of this database contained too many input boxes, most of them were not used at all. Besides that, entering new data in the database took a lot of time. My job was to investigate the interface, reduce the amount of input boxes and see how the efficiency of entering new data could be improved. I spoke with several people working with the database to get a picture of the function of the database, which input boxes were important and which were not. Based hereupon, I made an overview of which boxes the new interface should contain. Finally, I handed over this documentation to Bureau Onderzoek and the department which manages the database.
Janko Nauta
