New ActivitySteps / Active Tasks

[davwillev]

Hi All,

I would be very keen to contribute to RP.

In particular, I am interested in creating new ActivitySteps (Active Tasks on RK). I noticed here that you have already (re)created a few RK active tasks, including Stroop, Trail Making and Reaction Time.

I would like to try to recreate the RK Range of Motion Active Task (and maybe the Walking Tasks) as an implementation of ActivityStep on RP. To help with this, please can you point me in the direction of the code for these implemented ActivitySteps? Unfortunately, I couldn't see them on GitHub.

Thanks!

David Evans

[MadsVSChristensen]

Hi David,

We are in the process of releasing the Activity Steps on an new package "Cognition Package" (CP). I would refer you to the old commits where the steps used to be part of Research Package (RP), however, RP has changed so much that I think it would be better to show you the 'in progress'-work repo for CP. I have requested it be made public and will get back to you soon.

Happy to hear the interest,
Mads

[davwillev]

Dear @MadsVSChristensen
Thanks for getting back to me!

WIll the Cognition Package integrate into RP or is it an entirely separate entity?
I'm unfamiliar with Flutter architecture so could you let me know why it is better this way?

Also, not all of the active tasks are cognition-orientated. Is this a problem if I create (for example) the Range of Motion tasks for a PR?

Happy to chat directly if preferred: dwe@backpainclinic.co.uk

Best wishes,
David

[MadsVSChristensen]

Cognition Package is now a public repository. You can find it here, but the package hasn't been released on Pub.dev yet.
https://github.com/cph-cachet/cognition_package

Cognition Package will DEPEND on Research Package (RP). It will likely not mean any difference for you or any users atm.

There are a few reasons why we seperate the two packages, but at the head of it all is the simple fact that we did not intend to maintain these active steps, back when they were created by a colleague and I. However, now multiple sources have shown interest and we are attempting to meet the demand.

Yes, not all of the active tasks are cognition-orientated. That is not an issue but would possibly mean a seperate package or a renaming of CP. If this issue arises we will look into changing things.

I think these are great questions and others will certainly benefit from seeing our conversation here.

Hope this helps and clears up a few things,
Mads

[davwillev]

Thanks @MadsVSChristensen. I have just had a quick look and it looks very exciting.

Perhaps I should move this discussion over to CP in due course, but I noticed that all of the current activities/active tasks do not seem to use motion sensor data (e.g. accelerometer, gyroscope, etc.) However, the tasks that I am interested in will need this. In the past, once I can get hold of sensor data, I can create the tasks relatively quickly.

From working on ResearchKit and ResearchStack previously, I know that there are big differences between how iOS and Android capture device motion. Is this something that will have to be built into RP or CP?

Thanks (and great work)!

[bardram]

Hi @davwillev - I'm jumping into this conversation as the "product owner" of RP and CP. We're very glad that you find RP useful an want to contribute. As @MadsVSChristensen says, we're in the process of releasing CP (@ossi0004 and i will finish this in January), and we plan to write a tutorial on how to write additional Active Tasks to RP.

For my own reference, I'm including a link to RK built-in active tasks:

• http://researchkit.org/docs/docs/ActiveTasks/ActiveTasks.html

There are quite a lot. And I don't think we want to include these as part of RP - actually, the main reason for creating CP was to separate the cognitive tasks from RP. In Flutter, the common approach is to make small dedicate packages for pub.dev (we are even considering to separate the informed consent part from the survey part in RP).

So - if you want to contribute these non-cognitive active tasks, I think we should consider making another package.

But - let's coordinate this, once you've created the first one (which require us to write the tutorial first @ossi0004).

I will re-open this issue, to remind us.

[davwillev]

Hi @bardram (and @MadsVSChristensen)

Many thanks for getting back to me on this issue (and reopening it).

Yes, I am very interested in contributing to this. I appreciate your intention to separate the packages. I think the main difference between the 'cognitive' and 'non-cognitive active tasks will be the inclusion of motion sensor data. Once this has been accessed (something I would need help with), it should be relatively straight-forward to implement most of the active tasks from RK (e.e. walking, tremor, range of motion).

Having created tasks for both RK and ResearchStack previously, I am aware that iOS and Android access and handle sensor data in quite different ways, so it will be interesting to see how native iOS and Android apps can be created from from the Flutter code. And perhaps this will be important from an architectural point of view?

Looking forward to seeing these packages develop in any case!