Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34812396›Full record

ArticleIEEE access : practical innovations, open solutions2021

COVID-Scraper: An Open-Source Toolset for Automatically Scraping and Processing Global Multi-Scale Spatiotemporal COVID-19 Records.

Hai Lan, Dexuan Sha, Anusha Srirenganathan Malarvizhi, Yi Liu, Yun Li, Nadine Meister, Qian Liu, Zifu Wang, Jingchao Yang, Chaowei Phil Yang

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in IEEE access : practical innovations, open solutions, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
2.1field-weighted citation impact, top 13% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

10 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.

Hai LanNSF Spatiotemporal Innovation CenterGeorge Mason University Fairfax VA 22030 USA.
Dexuan ShaNSF Spatiotemporal Innovation CenterGeorge Mason University Fairfax VA 22030 USA.
Anusha Srirenganathan MalarvizhiNSF Spatiotemporal Innovation CenterGeorge Mason University Fairfax VA 22030 USA.
Yi LiuDepartment of Aerospace and Mechanical EngineeringUniversity of Notre Dame Notre Dame IN 46556 USA.
Yun LiNSF Spatiotemporal Innovation CenterGeorge Mason University Fairfax VA 22030 USA.
Nadine MeisterDepartment of PhysicsHarvard University Cambridge MA 2138 USA.
Qian LiuNSF Spatiotemporal Innovation CenterGeorge Mason University Fairfax VA 22030 USA.
Zifu WangNSF Spatiotemporal Innovation CenterGeorge Mason University Fairfax VA 22030 USA.
Jingchao YangNSF Spatiotemporal Innovation CenterGeorge Mason University Fairfax VA 22030 USA.
Chaowei Phil YangNSF Spatiotemporal Innovation CenterGeorge Mason University Fairfax VA 22030 USA.
George Mason University · USHarvard University · USUniversity of Notre Dame · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In 2019, COVID-19 quickly spread across the world, infecting billions of people and disrupting the normal lives of citizens in every country. Governments, organizations, and research institutions all over the world are dedicating vast resources to research effective strategies to fight this rapidly propagating virus. With virus testing, most countries publish the number of confirmed cases, dead cases, recovered cases, and locations routinely through various channels and forms. This important data source has enabled researchers worldwide to perform different COVID-19 scientific studies, such as modeling this virus's spreading patterns, developing prevention strategies, and studying the impact of COVID-19 on other aspects of society. However, one major challenge is that there is no standardized, updated, and high-quality data product that covers COVID-19 cases data internationally. This is because different countries may publish their data in unique channels, formats, and time intervals, which hinders researchers from fetching necessary COVID-19 datasets effectively, especially for fine-scale studies. Although existing solutions such as John's Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard and 1point3acres COVID-19 tracker are widely used, it is difficult for users to access their original dataset and customize those data to meet specific requirements in categories, data structure, and data source selection. To address this challenge, we developed a toolset using cloud-based web scraping to extract, refine, unify, and store COVID-19 cases data at multiple scales for all available countries around the world automatically. The toolset then publishes the data for public access in an effective manner, which could offer users a real time COVID-19 dynamic dataset with a global view. Two case studies are presented about how to utilize the datasets. This toolset can also be easily extended to fulfill other purposes with its open-source nature.

Indexed as

COVID-19multiple scalespatiotemporal dataWeb scraper

Identifiers

PMID34812396
PMCPMC8545187
OpenAlexW3171690063

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.