Question

Why is it important for protocol information to be published? What can you do if the protocol that you are working on does not have any publicly available information? Is there any one tool that is better than the rest? If so, why is it better? If not, how do you choose which tool to use when there are so many options?

Answer 1

Peer-review and publication of research protocols offer several advantages to all parties involved. Among these are the following opportunities for authors: external expert opinion on the methods, demonstration to funding agencies of prior expert review of the protocol, proof of priority of ideas and methods, and solicitation of potential collaborators. We think that review and publication of protocols is an important role for Open Access journals. Because of their electronic form, openness for readers, and author-pays business model, they are better suited than traditional journals to ensure the sustainability and quality of protocol reviews and publications. In this editorial, we describe the workflow for investigators in eHealth research, from protocol submission to a funding agency, to protocol review and (optionally) publication at to registration of trials at the International eHealth Study Registry (IESR), and to publication of the report. One innovation at is that protocol peer reviewers will be paid a honorarium, which will be drawn partly from a new submission fee for protocol reviews. Separating the article processing fee into a submission and a publishing fee will allow authors to opt for peer-review only(without subsequent publication) at reduced costs, if they wish to await a funding decision or for other reasons decide not to make the protocol public.It has long been advocated that journals take on a more active role in the primary prevention of poor research not only by peer reviewing final reports but by becoming involved earlier in the process through reviewing research protocols Even though some protocols are reviewed at a funding agency, it is also a fact that many projects (in particular smaller projects in eHealth) are never subjected to this scrutiny. Even if projects receive funding agency assessment, researchers and society may still benefit from a prior peer review and possible subsequent Medline-indexed publication. The arguments for doing so include the following.

• highlighting good-quality studies at an early stage

• contribution to a register of selected trials, to reduce publication bias against negative (neutral) or inconvenient findings

• promotion of recruitment of cooperating centres and trial participants

• helping researchers in funding applications

• prevention of poor research

• prevention of data dredging by documentation of intended analyses

• establishment of priority of an important idea.

The official business are often required to follow strict procedures when dealing with certain situations. Law enforcement officials, for example, are required to “follow protocol” when making enquiries or collecting evidence.

In the world of object-oriented programming, it’s important to be able to define a set of behavior that is expected of an object in a given situation. As an example, a table view expects to be able to communicate with a data source object in order to find out what it is required to display. This means that the data source must respond to a specific set of messages that the table view might send.

The data source could be an instance of any class, such as a view controller or a dedicated data source class that perhaps just inherits from . In order for the table view to know whether an object is suitable as a data source, it’s important to be able to declare that the object implements the necessary methods.

Objective-C allows you to define protocols, which declare the methods expected to be used for a particular situation. This chapter describes the syntax to define a formal protocol, and explains how to mark a class interface as conforming to a protocol, which means that the class must implement the required methods.

Postman is great for some quick and dirty API testing without worrying about the overhead of some of the other options. Postman is also a nice option for exploratory-type API testing. But it’s also powerful enough that you can create more integrated solutions if you wish.

Postman is an easy-to-use REST client, and you can get started with it quickly leveraging its Chrome plugin. There's a native version for both Mac and Windows.

It has a very rich interface that many REST clients don’t have, making it easy to use. It also enables you to easily share your knowledge with your co-workers, because you can package up all your requests and expected responses and send them off to someone else so that he or she can take a look also.

Casual gaming company Big Fish Games uses Postman as a collaborative tool. According to Amber Race, a software development engineer in test (SDET) at the company, one person does the research and figures out all the test cases for the API. That person then publishes that information to a wiki so that others can run the API tests and ensure that what they're doing doesn't break existing API functionality. Postman even allows you to place a button on your internal website saying, “Run in Postman,” and it automatically kicks off your Postman tests.

If your team wants to not only test APIs but also have a tool to help automate some of your exploratory API testing efforts, Postman is a great choice.