Data Based Prototyping

Data Based Prototyping is a method for bringing massive sets of raw data into an analyzable form and to customize an analysis system around the data. To obtain optimal results, data preparation should be geared towards the types of analyses planned and therefore should be done by experienced data analysts and not programmers. In this paper we outline the key ingredients of Data Based Prototyping and illustrate these with two case studies. The first of the two shows how 1 gigabyte of general hospitalization statistics can be made available for epidemiological studies, while the second example illustrates how data based prototyping can and should be applied to the development of complex information systems.