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This documentation section describes how the databases included in MetaCIH are prepared.

Before being released, all data is converted into a consistent, standardized format. This format ensures that data is compatible with other components of the MetaCIH infrastructure.

All released databases live in their own online Github repository. These repositories are hosted by the metacih-project organization account. All database repository names start with data-, followed by the shorthand of the database (e.g. data-depression-psyctr).

All MetaCIH databases hosted on Github follow the same folder structure. In particular, a metadata folder is included in each repository. This folder contains additional information associated with the dataset (e.g. the search date, the number of studies, or a variable description).

After a new database version has been uploaded to Github, data validators are used to check if the format conforms to the standard required by other components of the MetaCIH infrastructure (e.g. metapsyTools).

Finalized database repositories are then officially released via the Github Zenodo integration.