Research protocol development and study-design decisions, made explicit and traceable.

The problem

A finished protocol document rarely shows the decisions that produced it: why one study design was chosen over another, what evidence supported that choice, what alternatives were considered and set aside. When a design is questioned later — by a reviewer, an ethics board, or the researcher’s own future self — that reasoning is usually gone, leaving only the polished final prose to defend itself.

What it is

Weavidence Journey keeps state before prose: the research question, the candidate study designs, the evidence for and against each, and the researcher’s own decision are all held as explicit, inspectable state — with the protocol document generated from that state, not the other way around. Every step preserves human authority, visible uncertainty, and a real revision history, so a design choice can always be traced back to the reasoning and evidence behind it.

Interface preview

How it works

1. Frame the research question

   State the question the study is meant to answer before any design decision is made.

2. Surface what matters to the design

   Identify the facts that materially affect study design — population, exposure, outcome, setting.

3. Compare candidate designs

   See design options side by side, with their concerns, uncertainty, and tradeoffs made visible rather than hidden inside a recommendation.

4. Confirm or override, with reasoning

   Accept a candidate design or choose a different one — the override itself becomes part of the traceable decision record.

5. Assemble the protocol through governed modules

   The protocol is built from the same governed state as the decisions that produced it, not drafted separately.

6. Review readiness and unresolved evidence

   See findings, transition readiness, and any accepted risk before moving forward.

7. Preview, then export

   Preview the protocol and its full decision trace, then generate outputs in the format you need.

Primary capabilities

• Decision Score, Design Fit, and Readiness — kept separate

  Three distinct, deterministic indicators, not one blended AI-generated quality score. Score dimensions describe current evidence; design fit and lifecycle readiness are separate decisions.

• A visible decision trail

  Every design confirmation or override is preserved as part of the protocol’s own record, not lost once the final document is generated.

• Human authority throughout

  The researcher confirms or overrides every design decision — the system never finalizes a methodological choice on its own.

• Revision integrity

  Read, edit, suggest, and compare modes keep prior revisions inspectable rather than silently overwritten.

Outputs and artifacts

• The protocol document

  Generated from governed state, in professional HTML, PDF, DOCX, or canonical JSON.

• The decision trace

  A record of the study-design decisions behind the protocol — what was considered, what was chosen, and why — included with every export.

• A technical evidence package

  For teams that need the underlying structured record, not just the narrative document.

Human authority and governance

Journey’s five stated commitments are: state before prose, human authority, visible uncertainty, selective invalidation, and revision integrity. The researcher retains final methodological authority at every step — the system supports the decision; it does not make it.

Provenance and review

Every export includes a Decision Trace: the record of what was decided, in what order, and why. Read, Edit, Suggest, and Compare modes keep the history of a protocol’s revisions inspectable rather than silently overwritten by the latest version.

Current implementation reality

Weavidence Journey is a real, operational, production-deployed application — this is not a mockup or a future plan. External scientific validation of the platform itself has not yet been completed, and Journey is explicitly a research-design support system, not a clinical decision system: it does not guarantee scientific correctness, does not replace expert review, and does not treat fluent output as proof.

Limitations

• External scientific validation of the platform is not yet complete.
• Journey is not a clinical decision system and is not intended for clinical use.
• It does not replace expert methodological or ethical review, and it does not treat fluent output as proof of a sound design.

Who it's for

• Researchers designing a study who want their design decisions — not just the final protocol — to be inspectable.
• Public-health teams and institutions that need a traceable, revision-safe protocol-development record.
• Students and methodological reviewers evaluating or teaching study-design reasoning.

Frequently asked questions