SOVABIDS: A python package for the automatic conversion of MEG/EEG datasets that makes the most out of metadata

BIDS is a standard for neuroimaging datasets that helps with data sharing and reusability; as a result it has been widely adopted by the community. Although developed for MRI originally, it has gained popularity within the EEG and MEG realms. Converting raw data to the BIDS standard is not difficult but requires a lot of time if done by hand. Currently software like mne-bids and Biscuit are available to assist and facilitate this conversion but there is still no automated way to produce a valid BIDS dataset for the EEG and MEG use-cases. Mostly what is missing is metadata. Here a python package is proposed to be able to infer the missing information from files accompanying the EEG and MEG files and/or a single bids-conversion example provided by the user. The idea of having human-readable configuration files is also explored since this would help the sharing of common conversion parameters within similar communities. If this proposal was successfully implemented then batch conversion of BIDS datasets in the EEG and MEG cases would be realized. It is hoped that this package becomes the backend of an hypothetical web application that assists this conversion of MEG-EEG datasets.