Patent ID: 8417544

Claim:
A method for conducting collaborative research, comprising: displaying, at a portal, a request for a protocol for a clinical trial that investigates a clinical phenomenon; receiving, over a network, from a user, an indicator of at least one suggested protocol responsive to the request; after a preferred protocol is chosen from among the at least one suggested protocol, displaying, at the portal, an indicator of the preferred protocol; displaying, at the portal, a request for trial centers to perform a preferred clinical trial according to the preferred protocol; after a plurality of trial centers is selected to perform the preferred clinical trial, displaying, at the portal, an indicator of identity of each of the plurality of selected trial centers; wherein the preferred protocol comprises a mandatory clinical parameter whose value is determined according to the preferred clinical trial; wherein the preferred protocol comprises a plurality of optional clinical parameters whose value is optionally to be determined in the preferred clinical trial; after the preferred protocol is chosen, and after each of the selected trial centers has begun the preferred clinical trial according to the preferred protocol, receiving clinical trial data from the plurality of selected trial centers based on (a) the preferred protocol and (b) the preferred clinical trial; wherein the clinical trial data received from a first of the selected trial centers comprises (a) a value of the mandatory clinical parameter, and (b) a value of at least one of the optional clinical parameters; wherein the clinical trial data received from a second of the selected trial centers comprises (a) a value of the mandatory clinical parameter, but does not include (b) a value of the at least one of the optional clinical parameters; using data from each of the plurality of selected trial centers, including (a) the values of the mandatory parameter received from the first and second selected trial centers, and (b) the value of the at least one of the optional parameters received from the first trial center, performing a meta-analysis to determine a result comprising at least one of an effect size or a variability with respect to the mandatory parameter.