If you haven’t already gotten this idea, HAPS is an organization based on sharing and camaraderie between A&P instructors all around the world. In this vein, HAPS member Julie Dias, with the crucial support of HAPS Executive Director Peter English, built a dynamic website to enable Laboratory Data Collection and Sharing Amongst Post-Secondary Institutions.
The project stemmed from a desire to increase student interest in data collection and analysis by allowing them to share their data with other students around the world who were conducting similar experiments. It was also hypothesized that sharing data could result in a larger pool of data for under-represented groups which may include students in higher age categories, smokers, elite-level athletes and possibly even males.
The project includes three different spreadsheets to choose from:
- EKG – heart rate, PR interval, P wave duration, QRS duration, T wave duration (before and after exercise)
- Heart Rate and Blood pressure (systolic and diastolic ) before and after exercise
- Spirometry – respiration rate, tidal volume, inspiratory reserve, expiratory reserve, vital capacity, FEV1, FVC (before and after exercise)
All three spreadsheets also include the following demographic parameters: gender and age (both mandatory), and ethnicity, BMI, waist circumference, activity level, and smoker (all optional).
Any equipment for physiological data collection can be used. There is a column for inputting the type of equipment used to gather the data, such as Vernier with Logger Pro, BioPac, iWorks, etc. Contact Julie Dais to receive your private Google Docs spreadsheet for your institution, which will enable you to contribute data to the project. You do not need to be a HAPS member to do this.
A second aspect of the project includes resources to support basic statistical analyses using MS Excel. Data analysis templates are available along with instructions on how to perform these analyses and how to interpret the results. If you have questions or comments about the data analysis, you can contact Erin Radomske. Periodically the data submitted by the various participating colleges will be “curated” or further examined for erroneous results and moved to an Excel file on this page. However, to access this file of group data, you need to be a HAPS member. Please feel free to comment on this activity and make suggestions by using the Lab Data Forum.
This project represents just the sort of innovative collaboration fostered by HAPS that makes membership in the organization so incredibly valuable.