July 18, 2013

Data management tool developed at VU sees global growth

The number of researchers and institutions worldwide using a Vanderbilt University-developed Web application to collect and manage their data has about doubled in the past year.

The number of researchers and institutions worldwide using a Vanderbilt University-developed Web application to collect and manage their data has about doubled in the past year.

Nearly 95,000 investigators at 700 institutions in 58 countries around the globe are using the tool, called REDCap, short for Research Electronic Data Capture. That’s up from more than 46,000 research “end-users” at 352 academic and non-profit institutions in March 2012.

“It’s really getting quite viral out there,” said Paul Harris, Ph.D., associate professor of Biomedical Informatics who created REDCap in 2004. “This is our best year yet.”

The fifth annual REDCap conference, held last month at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, was attended by 165 people representing 90 institutions in 10 countries, including Brazil, Iceland, Nigeria and South Korea.

Harris directs the Office of Research Informatics and leads the informatics operations unit for the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (VICTR).

Others who have contributed to the development of REDCap include lead programmer Rob Taylor; program coordinator Brenda Minor; researcher training specialist Veida Elliott; Stephany Duda, Ph.D., research assistant professor of Biomedical Informatics and REDCap data core scientific director; and contributing programmers Jon Scherdin and Ross Davis.

For more information, log into http://www.project-redcap.org/.