# Data Modality & Methodology Task Force – 2026 **URL:** \ **Category:** Find a Collaborator\ **Tags:** meta, data-sharing, task-forces, ppmi, data-analysis, how-to, community\ **Created:** [September 23, 2026, 12:43am UTC](https://rcop.michaeljfox.org/t/data-modality-methodology-task-force-2026/1685 "2026-09-23T00:43:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ehutchins](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/michaeljfox/user_avatar/rcop.michaeljfox.org/ehutchins/32/530_2.png) [@ehutchins](https://rcop.michaeljfox.org/u/ehutchins)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 12:43am UTC](https://rcop.michaeljfox.org/t/data-modality-methodology-task-force-2026/1685/1 "2026-09-23T00:43:36Z")
Hello everyone! Hirotaka Iwaki [@hirotaka](https://rcop.michaeljfox.org/u/hirotaka) and I are continuing to co-lead the **Data Modality & Methodology Task Force** , and we would like to invite both returning and new community members to get involved in this year’s projects. The goal of this task force is to develop practical, reusable resources for working with Parkinson’s disease data, with an emphasis on reproducible and collaborative data analysis. Over the past two years, this has grown from a handful of proposed GitHub projects into several active repositories and project groups spanning clinical data, imaging, open science, data processing, and analysis methods. This year, we would like to continue developing those resources while also making it easier for new contributors to find a concrete project to join. ### Current projects and resources Some of the projects currently being developed through the task force include: - **[Useful PPMI Clinical Codes](https://github.com/MJFF-ResearchCommunity/Useful-PPMI-Clinical-Codes):** reusable PPMI-related scripts and workflows, including LEDD calculations, diagnosis-related tools, DBS, ADD, levodopa response, and other commonly needed clinical-data processing tasks. - **[Imaging Processing Pipeline](https://github.com/MJFF-ResearchCommunity/Imaging):** scripts, documentation, and examples for preprocessing imaging data and extracting imaging features. - **[Parkinson’s Insight Engine (PIE)](https://github.com/MJFF-ResearchCommunity/PIE):** a Python-based analysis and machine-learning framework for PPMI data. - **[PIE Clean](https://github.com/MJFF-ResearchCommunity/PIE-clean):** tools for PPMI data ingestion, cleaning, and exploration. - **[PIE Workbench](https://github.com/MJFF-ResearchCommunity/PIE-Workbench):** a graphical interface for the PIE ecosystem. - **[Getting Started with PD Data](https://github.com/MJFF-ResearchCommunity/getting-started-PD-data):** our data-wrangling guide, originally developed as a PDF and now converted into a living Quarto resource. - **[Open Science Guide](https://github.com/MJFF-ResearchCommunity/open-science-guide):** practical guidance and resources for transparent, reproducible, and collaborative research. - **[Small Analysis Project Template](https://github.com/MJFF-ResearchCommunity/small-analysis-project-template):** a lightweight template for organizing reproducible analysis projects. We also had some webinars last year related to these projects. ### Plans for this year At our initial kickoff meeting, we identified several areas we would like to focus on during the 2026 task-force year. In addition to expanding upon the existing set of projects, one major goal is to make the existing resources work better together. For example, the PIE projects have expanded into an ecosystem covering data cleaning, analysis, and a graphical interface. We are interested in developing projects that can both test these tools and show researchers how they can be used together, potentially incorporate existing resources such as the clinical-code repository and imaging workflows, and apply open science resources and ideals to existing and new projects. We also discussed plans for a future hackathon. ### How to get involved You do not need to have an existing project or be an expert in one of these areas to participate. We are always open to members of the community joining, whether to contribute to existing project, add new project ideas, or other ideas and contributions. The more the merrier! We want to continue to build these resources with the community so that many researchers can use them in their own work. Most of our work happens asynchronously, with periodic subgroup meetings and full task-force meetings to share progress, identify overlaps, and coordinate across projects. We are currently planning on having our next full task force meeting in October. If you are interested in joining, please reply to this thread with the areas or projects you are interested in, or reach out to [@ehutchins](https://rcop.michaeljfox.org/u/ehutchins) or [@hirotaka](https://rcop.michaeljfox.org/u/hirotaka). ---
**Author:** ![tiago.azevedo](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/michaeljfox/user_avatar/rcop.michaeljfox.org/tiago.azevedo/32/598_2.png) [@tiago.azevedo](https://rcop.michaeljfox.org/u/tiago.azevedo)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2026, 12:38pm UTC](https://rcop.michaeljfox.org/t/data-modality-methodology-task-force-2026/1685/2 "2026-09-24T12:38:29Z")
I can’t wait for the developments during this new (academic) year! 🙂