Documentation overview

DataPipe takes the data your participants produce and puts it in storage you already own. You connect Google Drive, Dataverse, or Zenodo to your DataPipe account, create an experiment, and add a few lines of code to the experiment your participants run. Google Drive and Zenodo connect in one click. Dataverse asks for an API token from your institution's installation. The getting started guide walks through all of it in order.

Three things are involved:

• Your experiment, hosted wherever you like, sends each participant's data to DataPipe along with your experiment ID and a filename.
• DataPipe checks the submission against your experiment's settings. Is it still accepting data? Does the file pass validation? Is the session limit reached? If everything checks out, DataPipe passes the file along.
• Your storage provider receives the file into your own account, in the Drive folder, Dataverse dataset, or Zenodo deposition that DataPipe created for this experiment.

The provider you pick decides where files land and what happens if two of them share a name. Choosing a provider

It doesn't host your experiment.

You still need somewhere to put the experiment itself online, such as GitHub Pages, Netlify, or your university's web hosting. DataPipe handles only the data. That's what lets you skip running a server of your own.

GitHub Pages is a free option. In their guide, pick "project site" and "start from scratch".

A step-by-step walkthrough of publishing on GitHub Pages. Getting started guide, step 6

It doesn't keep your data.

Normally DataPipe passes each participant's data straight to your storage provider and keeps no copy. The one exception is an upload that fails. DataPipe holds that submission, retries it on its own, and lets you download it from your experiment dashboard while you wait.

Exactly what is held, for how long, and who can read it. What DataPipe stores

The page to hand your IRB: architecture, encryption, retention, and jurisdiction in one place. Privacy & information for IRBs

It doesn't analyze your data.

DataPipe never interprets, summarizes, or scores what a participant submitted. The only thing it can add is Psych-DS metadata, a description of your dataset and its variables that is written alongside the data when you turn that option on.

What the metadata files contain and how they are built. Psych-DS metadata

The pages below are in reading order, but each one stands on its own. Jump to whichever answers your question.