Datacorp, a Cheyenne, Wyoming social science research firm, has won a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant award from the National Institute of Health.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Datacorp president and chief executive officer Dr. P. Allison Minugh is pleased to announce that the Datacorp team has been awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse of the National Institute of Health.

The SBIR is a highly competitive grant program that encourages small businesses to develop specialized technologies for commercialization. The program is designed to stimulate high-tech innovation to help the United States meet its research and develop ment needs.

Datacorp will use its SBIR funding to develop a working prototype of the D3: Data Documentation Database. The D3 is an automated, user-friendly software package for data documentation that solves a common threat to good research – inadequate data documentation.

“In our own data management experience, we have encountered this problem repeatedly,” Minugh said. “It is endemic in clinical trials, surveys, and secondary data gathered by state agencies. Poor documentation weakens the integrity of study data and leads to incorrect conclusions, poor recommendations and differential findings — even when researchers use the same data set.

“Despite its importance, few studies document accurately. Not only are current technologies for data documentation time consuming and cumbersome, data documentation is not typically a part of formal education and training. The D3 will solve this problem using a guided format that, when combined with other features, produces accurate and complete documentation even when users have no formal training in data documentation and data management.”

Phase I will last six months and will focus on developing a working prototype. After the prototype is completed, Datacorp will seek Phase II funding which will allow it to com mercialize and market the software package.

The D3 is specifically designed for research studies in the social sciences, epidemiological and behavioral health fields. The target market for the D3 is researchers, government officials, universities, research institutions and businesses that analyze and report their own data.

Datacorp has offices in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Providence, R.I. Minugh can be reached by calling 866-289-6817. For more information, contact Datacorp at info@mjdatacorp.com or visit www.mjdatacorp.com.