Case Study: The University of Alabama at Birmingham achieves flexible, high-integrity meta-research data management with ArangoDB

Meta-Research Engine at UAB Powered by ArangoDB

The University of Alabama at Birmingham built the Meta-Research Engine to support large-scale, collaborative encoding of scientific studies but faced challenges modeling dynamic, hierarchical research data, ensuring data accuracy and conflict resolution, and keeping the front-end intuitive for many encoders. To meet these goals they selected ArangoDB as their multi-model DBMS to replace a relational backend and enable flexible, graph-based project definitions and efficient querying.

Using ArangoDB, UAB modeled studies as graphs, stored lean JSON encodings (eliminating redundant structure metadata), and leveraged AQL for complex aggregations that often remove the need for external analysis code. The ArangoDB-based architecture enabled stateless web services, richer user management, real-time UI rendering, and automated conflict detection and resolution on save, reducing complexity and storage redundancy while making large-scale conflict analysis and reporting practical across many encodings.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Chris Rocco

Systems Developer