Castellum as a community-driven participant management tool

• Applicants: Dr. Maike Kleemeyer; Dr. Lennart Wittkuhn
• Subject Area: Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience ; Empirical Social Research ; Developmental and Educational Psychology ; Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 559475114

Research institutions face challenges in complying with strict guidelines for processing personal data since the enforcement of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018. This is particularly relevant in the humanities, where research projects often depend on the recruitment of human study participants. Unfortunately, many institutions lack the necessary resources and expertise to comply with data protection requirements in a user-friendly manner. To address this issue, we have developed Castellum, an open-source web application that offers a turnkey solution for the data protection-compliant management of participants and their personal data. Castellum stands out as a unique project in the open-source landscape, offering a comprehensive range of features that are currently not available in any comparable alternative. We are dedicated to making it accessible to a wider audience, thereby supporting research institutions to manage personal data effectively in compliance with data protection regulations. Considering our limited personnel resources, it is essential that we enable institutions to deploy Castellum independently. The following three goals will be pursued with funding from the DFG, which align with focus area 2 of the funding program. 1. Compile a handbook that outlines the organizational implementation of Castellum: Software alone is not sufficient for conducting GDPR-compliant research. While Castellum significantly simplifies this process, it must be integrated into a framework of clear organizational structures and defined responsibilities, which have to be established during the rollout. Although Castellum as a software is well-established and documented, the surrounding measures are not. It is thus essential to document the organizational implementation of Castellum, in addition to the existing technical and end-user documentation. 2. Develop a train-the-trainer concept: After successful deployment, institutions should be empowered to efficiently train their future Castellum users. We need to allow easy and flexible training of the different roles (see section on Rights and roles below). 3. Conceive and establish an operating model: To ensure Castellum’s availability and maintenance for scientific institutions in the long term, we will actively promote Castellum within the broader research community to foster a self-sustaining community of active users and developers, similar to successful initiatives such as RDMO, Qcovery, and finc. To ensure the suitability of the materials created, the University of Hamburg’s Faculty of Psychology and Human Movement will deploy Castellum accordingly and make any necessary adjustments. Subsequently, all materials will be made publicly available alongside the existing software and documentation. This approach will ensure that knowledge about Castellum’s technical and organizational implementation is established in a sustainable manner.

• DFG Programme: Research data and software (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• Participating Institution: Universität Hamburg; Fakultät Psychologie und Bewegungswissenschaft
• Co-Investigators: Tobias Bengfort; Sebastian Nix