Table of Contents
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 you need to go through to utilize these features for your study and projects.
We will first introduce you to ProTrackS, a web-based service request system used by the CTSI to track services and resources needed by researchers. We will then walk you through the REDCap web application and go through the entire lifecycle of a REDCap project – from 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.
ProTrackS
As mentioned earlier, ProTrackS is a web-based service request system for the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). ProTrackS provides the ability for you to request research and operational services from any of the CTSI Cores and Services. ProTrackS creates a CTSI ID for your projects so we can track the services and resources you need for your research projects.
Select "Request Services" if you need to use REDCap for one of your studies or projects. You will then be taken to a survey that you will need to complete.
Please make sure to complete all sections that you are taken to within this survey.
For the CTSI services, make sure to select "Biomedical Informatics Core", as this is the core that provides all REDCap related services and resources.
Make sure to take note and remember the CTSI ID that you are provided, as this will be important when requesting a new REDCap project or further services from the REDCap team. This is located at the bottom of the second page of the survey.
Please also make sure to fill out the BMIC Project Information survey as well.
Once you enter all the information required for your REDCap project, you will be shown your CTSI ID again. Make sure to remember your CTSI ID!
Once you've reached the following screen- congratulations! You've registered your project in ProTrackS.
Now let's head over to REDCap to actually create your project.
Accessing REDCap
The REDCap login page
The University of Utah REDCap web application can be accessed from here: http://redcap.ccts.utah.edu/
We have Announcements and Resources outlined in the login and home pages that you see before and after you login to REDCap. These links are your friend!
The BMIC team offers a lot of helpful resources, including REDCap Training Videos, 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. All of these can be accessed from links placed here.
We also host help sessionsalso linked here.
If none of these resources solve your issues, can also reach out to us through the REDCap help desk.
Logging into REDCap
More details on logging into REDCap for the first time can be found in our Becoming a REDCap user knowledge article, but we will also outline it here:
Go to: https://redcap.ccts.utah.edu
Sign in with your U of U ID (uNID) and your campus password.
Fill out and submit the form that comes up, use your primary email address associated with the U of U.
You will then be sent an email to confirm your REDCap account. Make sure to confirm your email!
Once you've confirmed your email, log in to REDCap using your uNID and campus password.
If you are a an Affiliate and require an Affiliate ID, please refer to the Becoming a REDCap user knowledge article for more information.
The REDCap home page
When you first log into REDCap, you will be taken to the home page.
You will again see the Announcements and Resources that were visible in the login page. Above that will be the navigation bar, containing links to certain parts of the REDCap application. Some of these will be hidden depending on the permissions given to your user account.
"My Projects" shows a list of projects that you have access to, either for data entry or project design and creation, or both.
You can request to create a new project by clicking on the "New Project" button and filling out all of the details. Make sure to include your CTSI ID in the title! (For example, "New Project-CTSI9999"). Here, you can either create a completely blank project, or use a built-in template provided by REDCap.
You can access the REDCap FAQs froim the "Help & FAQ" link. You can search for topics using keywords. Please utilize this in addition to our knowledge articles as a resource to learn how to use REDCap for your projects.
There are also introductory videos that walk you through the various features of REDCap within the "Training Videos" page.
REDCap project
Creating a new project
Now let's create a demo project and walk through it together.
When creating a new project, you will be prompted to make sure you've registered your project in ProTrackS.
If you've already registered and added your CTSI number to your project title, then you may select "I Agree". If not, select "Cancel" and make sure your title contains the CTSI ID.
Once a new project is requested, we try to acknowledge and approve all requests within 24 hours, so please plan accordingly!
Project-level navigation
When you first access your newly created project, you will be taken to the "Project Setup" page.
This page is your friend! Here, you can find a chronological order of things that you need to enable and/or customize while creating your REDCap project.
Additionally, the navigation pane on the left is where you will find most of the features that you will be using on a daily basis. Some of these may be hidden for you depending on your user account rights. Below is a short introduction to each section shown here. Some of the links will be explored in greater depth in alter sections of this training.
Project Home and Design
If you are designing and creating your REDCap project, you will be spending most of your time in the links shown in this section.
Data Collection
This is the section that houses links to the pages that let you enter and collect data within REDCap.
Applications
REDCap comes with many features that help with data collection, data managements, and study management. Many of these can be found in this section.
Reports
If you create custom data reports from the "Data Exports, Reports, and Stats" link in the Applications section above, they will become accessible here.
External Modules
Sometimes, core REDCap functionality is not enough for your project. External Modules are extensions to REDCap developed by the community, available for use within your projects, if needed. If you have any External Modules enabled for your project, they will be shown here.
Help & Information
Links here will quickly take you to the FAQ and training videos that were shown earlier.
REDCap help within the application
You may have noticed that there are many buttons and links within the Project Setup page that take you to helpful videos or articles about certain features within REDCap.
The REDCap application has many of these links available at various points in the application. These are designed by the Vanderbilt team to make using REDCap as stress-free as possible. Click around when in doubt- you may find a resource that will help when you are stuck!
Instrument Design
Once your REDCap project is created, you will be configuring your project and creating instruments to use during data collection. As REDCap is very customizable and can be used for various use cases, we will only touch on the basics of configuring a REDCap project here. If you have certain use cases that require a more in depth explanation, we have a whole range of knowledge artlces that can be of help.
Online Designer
You will most likely be spending the majority of your time within the Online Designer when creating instruments for your REDCap project. The Online Designer is a graphical instrument design interface that allows you to create data collection instruments very quickly. This can be accessed either from the left hand navigation panel, or from the Project Setup page.
When you enter the Online Designer, you will be greeted with a list of instruments that are configured for your project. In this page, you can create an instrument from scratch, upload a ZIP file of an instrument that has already been configured, or search within the REDCap Shared Library to find an instrument that has already been created by a fellow REDCap community user. you will also be able to copy, delete, download, and rename instruments when you select the "Choose action" button.
There are other buttons visible here, but we'll get to that later.
Creating an Instrument
For now, select the first instrument that is in the list of instruments. You can do this by clicking on either the pencil icon that shows up next to the form name, or the form name itself.
You will then be taken into the instrument to configure individual variables and fields.
[Confluence up to date until this section. Everything below is new]
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.
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.
But what if you want participants do directly enter data? Or collect data anonymously?
Enter Surveys.
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 can then designate this email address as the point of contact to send subsequent survey invitations. REDCap will then generate a specific URL for that email address that lets you link the survey responses to a specific record.
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?
Enter Survey Queue.
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.