PRISM Studio Documentation
Turn raw psychology and neuroscience study data into clean, BIDS-compatible datasets — without your data ever leaving your own computer.
A concrete before and after
One common workflow: take a raw questionnaire spreadsheet, map participants, attach metadata, run scoring recipes, and export a clean project for analysis.
Raw study files
- One spreadsheet with mixed survey items, coded demographics, and ad hoc participant IDs
- No reusable metadata, no scoring logic, and no clear BIDS-ready structure
- Manual cleanup repeated in spreadsheets before every export or analysis pass
One analysis-ready PRISM project
- Participant mappings standardized once, with cleaner IDs and ontology-friendly metadata
- Survey sidecars, scoring recipes, and validation feedback stored inside the project
- BIDS-compatible structure plus export targets such as SPSS, TSV, CSV, labels, and codebooks
This is the core promise of PRISM Studio: less spreadsheet surgery, more reproducible research data.
Why researchers use PRISM Studio
Convert messy source data
Import Excel, CSV, TSV, and LimeSurvey data into a structured PRISM dataset without hand-building folders or filenames.
Score questionnaires automatically
Build scoring recipes for surveys and compute derived scores without maintaining fragile spreadsheet formulas.
Privacy-safe export for analysis
Generate analysis-ready exports such as SPSS, CSV, TSV, labels, and codebooks with anonymization and MRI metadata/privacy safeguards.
Stay compatible with BIDS apps
PRISM adds surveys and other study metadata without giving up standard BIDS validators and downstream tools.
Handle multi-version survey studies
Use version-aware and run-aware survey workflows so evolving instruments remain conversion-ready and traceable across sessions.
Full DataLad provenance support
Initialize tracked projects, save snapshots, and record DataLad-backed mutation runs for critical dataset updates.
Rename and de-identify subjects in bulk
Rewrite subject or BIDS entity IDs across an entire dataset in one batch, with DataLad-aware per-subject commits and collision checks.
Sync to a remote DataLad server
Push a tracked project to a remote RIA store with one click, verify every file transferred intact, and disconnect safely.
Important
PRISM is an add-on to BIDS, not a replacement. PRISM Studio datasets should still work with BIDS apps such as fMRIPrep and MRIQC.
Important
Source installation requires Python 3.10 or newer.