Apple has released its ResearchKit development framework as an open source project today, giving medical researchers a new way to develop studies that use smartphones to collect data from users.
The ResearchKit repository on GitHub gives developers the tools they need to integrate the framework into their iOS apps and create new tools for medical research. With it, developers can easily create apps to run surveys and collect data from a phone’s sensors to provide a glimpse into a facet of users’ health. It’s designed to give researchers access to a larger cohort of survey participants and collect more accurate data rather than relying on respondents’ self-reporting.
It’s an extension of Apple’s push into the health and fitness market, which kicked off last year with the launch of HealthKit. That framework allows developers to pull in and share fitness and health data, but it’s more tailored to providing user feedback rather than use as a research tool.
Developers who want to get a feel for what’s possible with the framework can look at the source code for some of the existing ResearchKit apps that launched last month alongside Apple’s announcement of the new tools.
By making the technology open source, Apple has opened it up to work from other companies and research organizations. The company has encouraged users to continue building out what’s possible in ResearchKit, and it’s even possible that people could fork the technology for other mobile platforms if they wanted to.
This news comes alongside an announcement from IBM yesterday that the computing giant will expand its existing partnership agreement with Apple to allow users of its Health Cloud and Watson services to communicate with HealthKit and ResearchKit.
