The date format in the database was changed to ISO 8601 for the following reasons:

  1. Allow partial dates to be saved in a standard, consistent format, rather than as a string based on the users locale
  2. Eliminate confusion amongst people accessing the database directly as to what format the date is in.
  3. Support future introduction of time zone and time properties in OpenClinica.

 

Definitions and Acronyms:

ISO 8601 is the standard date format to be supported for CRF items with a data type of DATE or PDATE.

ISO 8601 is a universally recognized standard date format.  More information about the standard can be found at the following URLs:

http://www.iso.org/iso/date_and_time_format

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601