REDCap guide: How to Start Using the Tool

Front page after login

When you have logged in REDCap,  besides the first page you see various tabs:

  • My projects-tab, where you see all the projects you have created or have been given rights to.
  • New Project-tab, where you start creating a new project.
  • Help & FAQ -tab, where you find help and answers to the most frequently asked questions.
  • Training Videos -tab, where you find videos created by Vanderbilt University which demonstrate the different functionalities of REDCap.
  • Profile-tab, where you can see your login details. Here you can also enable the Microsoft / Google Authenticator for two-step login or configure the REDCap system notifications. 

Creating a project

Start creating a project by clicking on New Project.

Give your project a name an choose the purpose of the project from the drop-down menu. You have the following options for the project's purpose:

  • Practice/Just for fun
  • Operational Support
  • Research
  • Quality Improvement
  • Other

You can later edit the name and the purpose if needed.  The purposes for the project's will be shown in the REDCap's statistics that the admins see (expert the practice projects).

When you are practicing how to use REDCap, it is recommended that you start by creating a practice project. Don't use real data in a practice project.

When you start creating a project for the very first time, start from scratch (empty project, blank slate).

 

 

The pop-up window that opens will tell you about the University of Helsinki guidelines about processing personal data:

 

 

Note! REDCap was originally created for US universities. In the US, all research involving personal data undergoes an ethics review. The REDCap home page mentions this, and the text cannot be changed to reflect Finnish practice.

Planning data collection

Before you create your projcet, plan what data you will collect. Consider the following questions: 

  • What?
  • Why?
  • Who?
  • When?
  • How?
  • Is it a longitudinal study?
  • Is it an anonymous survey?

Make a data management plan where you describe how you will take care of research data throughout its life cycle. Familiarize yourself with the University of Helsinki's guidance on research data management. 

If you are unsure whether you will be processing personal or sensitive data, you can test yourself here: Do I Have Personal Data?

Different stages

Recommended stages in a REDCap project

  1. Development stage. In develompmet stage you create a project and the instruments for collecting data. You also need to test how everything works in your project. 
  2. Production stage. In production stage you collect real data. 
  3. Analysis stage. In analysis stage you export data out of REDCap for analysis.

After analysis stage, you can archive the project or delete it altogether from REDCap. 

Informing research participants

Instructions on how to inform participants in Flamma On the Flamma page there is also privacy notice templates in three languages.

Main Settings of the Project

After you have created the project and accepted the pop-up window, you come to Project Setup page, where you determine the fuctions of your project.

  • In main project settings, you enable online survey or longitudinal function.
  • The data collection form is created with Online Designer tool.
  • You can give user rights to your project in User Rights.
  • In Optional Modules you can add different functions for your project.
  • On the Project Setup page you are also reminded about the importance of testing your project.
  • At the end of the Project Setup page is where you can move your project into Production Stage. 

How to give user rights to your projects

You can give different level of user right to your project for project members. Think carefully what level of rights you give to each person.

 

 

In order to give user rights to a person, they first have to login to REDCap. The right person needs to be selected from the drop-down menu:

 

If you need to give same level of rights to several persons, you can first create a role (e.g. "Data Entry person"), and define the rights of that particular role:

 

 

When you have created the role, it is easy to add persons to the desired role:

 

If there are persons in the project who are not from the University of Helsinki and need access to the REDCap project, it is possible to apply for access rights.  Instructions here.

Research participants and for those who answer the survey online don't need user rights to REDCap.

My projects page

You can see all the projects that you have created and for which you have been granted rights on the My Projects page:

  • Click on the name of the project and you get to the Project Setup page.  you  nimestä pääsee projektin sivulle.
    • If you have a lot of projects, it's a good idea to organize them into folders.
  • All projects get a unique identifier, PID. 
  • You can see how many fields there and how many records have been created/collected.
  • Instruments column shows the type of the instrument in the project.
  • Type column shows whether the form is classical of longitudinal/repeating form.
  • Last column shows the stage/status of the project.

 

 

Left panel of the project

When you are inside a project, you can access different functions from the panel on the left.

  • Project Home and Design: you can access project settings (Project Setup) and design your instrument/form (Online Designer).
    • You can also access the Dictionary and Code Book. 
  • Data Collection:  here you can add or edit data
    • If you are using surveys in your project, you can get the survey link here.
  • Under Applications there are several functions:
    • you can give user rights, export data or access logging information.

 

 

Subjects: General Guides

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