AUTHOR=Karthan Maximilian , Martin Robin , Holl Felix , Swoboda Walter , Kestler Hans A. , Pryss Rüdiger , Schobel Johannes 

TITLE=Enhancing mHealth data collection applications with sensing capabilities

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.926234

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2022.926234

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=Smart mobile devices like smartphones or tablets have become a salient factor 
for collecting data in complex healthcare scenarios (i.e., psychological studies, medical 
trials), slowly replacing traditional pen-and-paper instruments. However, by simply 
digitizing such instruments, the full potential of such devices is not 
fully utilized yet: Most modern devices comprise a variety of different sensing 
capabilities (i.e., microphone, GPS data, camera, ...), which may also provide 
valuable data and potentially valuable insights for healthcare professionals and researchers.
Considerable development effort is required to integrate sensing capabilities into (existing)
data collection applications. Developers may have to deal with 
platform-specific peculiarities (i.e., Android vs. iOS) or proprietary sensor 
data formats, which lead to unnecessary development overhead when supporting 
researchers with such digital solutions. A cross-platform mobile sensing framework has been developed to enhance
existing data collection applications with sensing capabilities to cope with these issues. This 
framework will allow researchers to collect additional information from 
participants as well as their environment, increasing the amount of data that 
is collected and potential new insights from existing data.