Redcap (Research Electronic Data Capture)

REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) is a browser-based, metadata-driven EDC software solution and workflow methodology for designing clinical and translational research databases. It is widely used in the academic research community: the REDCap Consortium is a collaborative, international network of more than 2400 institutional partners in over 115 countries, with more than 590,000 total end-users employing the software for more than 450,000 ongoing research studies.

REDCap was developed by an informatics team at Vanderbilt University with ongoing support from NCRR and NIH grants. REDCap was designed to address common problems for academic biomedical researchers hoping to use electronic databases. First, major vendor EDC and CDMS solutions are targeted and priced for large clinical trials, and can be prohibitively expensive for investigator-initiated studies or other such studies at a smaller scale. Secondly, the independent research environment often lacks the informatics and other multidisciplinary support necessary for effective IT integration into research protocols. The REDCap software as distributed through the REDCap consortium attempts to facilitate informatics support for clinical researchers and foster a collaborative network of institutional researchers who share and support REDCap as a common research tool.

Although REDCap is available at no charge to institutional partners – discounting the cost of internal IT support staffing – REDCap is expressly not open-source software. Certain end-user license agreements distinguish it from a typical open-source license. Namely, the software is restricted in use, permitted only for non-commercial research purposes. REDCap is also restricted in redistribution because Vanderbilt is the only entity that can distribute it. Furthermore, any and all derived works – such as innovations or programmatic features added on by the user – are essentially owned by Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt catalogues such derived works in their REDCap Consortium library, which is available to all consortium members. The REDCap End-User License Agreement also encompasses control by Vanderbilt over its licensees' publications on or about REDCap, specifying that Vanderbilt shall coordinate and have editorial control over any "publications created by CONSORTIUM MEMBERS which discuss the SOFTWARE and its methodologies, functionality, and/or abilities." Publications that describe scientific studies which have utilized REDCap are excepted from these editorial restrictions.

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