List and order of topics and functionality to cover during weekly Monday REDCap beginner's class
ProTrackS
...
Introduction
Welcome to REDCap 101!
The following course is designed to get you up to speed quickly on the various features within REDCap, and the processes necessary to assist you in utilizing the features for your study and projects.
We will first introduce you to ProTrackS, a web-based service request system for the Center for Translational Science Institute (CTSI). ProTrackS provides ability for you to request research and operational services from any of the CTSI foundations.
Register within ProTrackS and obtain a CTSI #. Make sure to indicate that you need a REDCap project.
Logging in to REDCap
We have Announcements and Resources outlined in the login and home pages that you see when you login to REDCap. A lot of helpful resources, including Training Videos that cover what I'm talking about today in more detail if desired, Help & FAQs that have answers to a lot of questions we get, and our own knowledge base articles that covers lots of topics regarding REDCap projects.
Also have help sessions, including this class, outlined here. If none of these resources solve your issues, can also reach out to us through the REDCap help desk.
"My Projects" shows list of projects that you have access to, either for data entry or project design and creation.
Create REDCap project
Create a new project by clicking on "New Project" button and make sure to include CTSI # in the title
Once requested, we will receive the request and approve if the CTSI # is there
Left Navigation Pane
Go over navigation pane in left, line by line. Depending on user rights some of these will be hidden.
Important ones:
Project Setup
Designer
Dictionary
Codebook
Record Status Dashboard
Add / Edit Records
Data Exports
Data Imports
User Rights / DAGs
Surveys if enabled
Alerts & Notifications if needed
Project Setup screen
This is your friend! Chronological order of things that you need to enable and/or customize while creating your REDCap project.
Creating an Instrument
Go into Online Designer
Briefly explain each field type
Create some dummy fields
When creating new instruments, make sure to go to user rights to adjust the access for these instruments. Currently, "hidden/no access" by default.
used by the CTSI to track services and resources needed by researchers. We will then walk you through the REDCap application reviewing the entire lifecycle of a REDCap project – including initial configuration, data entry, and data export.
By the end of this course, you should be able to quickly build and use REDCap projects for your various studies and projects.
Click on the topics below to get started!
Table of Contents
Data Entry
After creating fields, enter some data. This is where most action happens for most REDCap users.
But what if some data fields are conditional?
Branching logic
Enter branching logic.
Can enable this for individual fields, entire forms.
Repeating Instruments
If you have forms that should be used multiple times (and have no idea how many times), then repeating instruments are useful. Enable this in setup, then designate the instruments that get repeated. Can also customize the "title" so you can differentiate between the different instances
Longitudinal Projects
Sometimes you want to collect data across multiple time points, and also repeatedly use the same form for these different points. Can do this by enabling the "longitudinal" option.
Creates events, and can designated instruments to each event that you want it to show.
Surveys
So far we've covered everything that happens within REDCap. Access is limited to those who have uNID, or affiliate uNID.
...
Once enabled as survey, can use instruments to collect data outside of the REDCap data entry screen.
Public
In Survey Distribution Tools, can set up a public link that you can share with anyone. In this case, first instrument (with record ID) needs to be survey, and all responses are collected anonymously, unless you collect identifying information in this specific survey.
If you're trying to collect data and don't care about linking subsequent responses to an initial survey response, then you can just use the public link. If you need another survey, will have to create a separate project.
Private
If you want to continue collecting data and link a specific response to an initial survey / record, you need to collect email addresses in the initial survey.
...
You also don't have to use the public survey link- every survey could be a private survey sent specifically to a participant's email address. In this scenario, you would collect the participant's contact information and directly enter it into REDCap using the normal data entry screen, then use the survey distribution tools (or automated survey invitations) to send out invitations.
Automated survey invitations
Once you have the contact information of your participants, you can schedule invitations that go out automatically.
These can be triggered by certain conditions and/or time points that you set up.
Survey Queue
What if you have certain surveys administered depending on certain conditions?
...
You can use this to set up conditions that compile the list of surveys that participants need to complete depending on conditions.
Form Display Logic
You can also do the same function by using Form Display Logic, if you wish.