Padawan: a tool for creating research data warehouses for heterogeneous use cases and requirements

Abstract A research data warehouse supports the user in analysing large amounts of data to find data elements with specific properties or for aggregating data to find interesting relations. It should have a simple import and be flexible to deal with heterogeneous requirements instead of designing a custom solution for each use case. It should also be usable without any advanced technological skills. We propose a tool for creating such a research data warehouse called PaDaWaN and describe its data model, query capabilities and various use cases for different research projects. Its flexibility results from an easy import process with the support of ontologies, different data types including text and images, constructing ad-hoc features, and allowing logical combinations in queries. The use cases comprise medical, academic, manufacturing, and historical economy applications, and in all of them, all requested reports could be created as long as the participating organisations were able to provide the necessary data for them.