Science gateway adoption using plug‐in middleware for evidence‐based healthcare data management

Abstract

SummaryThere is a growing need for next‐generation science gateways to increase the accessibility of emerging large‐scale datasets for data consumers (e.g., clinicians, researchers) who aim to combat COVID‐19‐related challenges. Such science gateways that enable access to distributed computing resources for large‐scale data management need to be made more programmable, extensible, and scalable. In this article, we propose a novel socio‐technical approach for developing a next‐generation healthcare science gateway, namely, OnTimeEvidence that addresses data consumer challenges surrounding the COVID‐19 pandemic related data analytics. OnTimeEvidence implements an intelligent agent, namely, Vidura Advisor that integrates an evidence‐based filtering method to transform manual practices and improve scalability of data analytics. It also features a plug‐in management middleware that improves the programmability and extensibility of the science gateway capabilities using microservices. Lastly, we present a usability study that shows the important factors from data consumers' perspective to adopt OnTimeEvidence with chatbot‐assisted middleware support to increase their productivity and collaborations to access vast publication archives for rapid knowledge discovery tasks.