Frequently Asked Questions

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Before you can join an existing REDCap project or create a new one, you must first establish a REDCap account. All accounts are created by the REDCap administrator. Once you have established an account, set a password, and logged in for the first time, you can be added to any REDCap project by your project team.

For more detailed instructions, please review the Establish Your Account page.

There are two types of REDCap accounts with different levels of account permissions.

• Full-access (Creator or Owner) Account
  • For users who need to create new projects
  • Usually act as the PI or project manager
  • Only available to current UIC faculty, staff, or students
• Access-only (Collaborator) Account

  • For users who need to access one or more existing projects

  • Can be granted full control of existing projects, including modifying instruments and controlling user rights

  • Can’t create new projects

  • Available to UIC faculty, staff, or students or to outside collaborators

Yes. UIC REDCap is available to UIC researchers and their collaborators. An external collaborator can request an access-only (collaborator) account with a UIC sponsor. The UIC sponsor must have an existing REDCap account associated with a uic.edu email address.

However, if REDCap data collection is finished, we recommend exporting and sharing data instead of letting external collaborators access REDCap. REDCap users with sufficient permissions can download and share an entire project in XML format or separately export the data dictionary and data in several formats. Please remember that downloaded data is no longer protected or encrypted by REDCap, so sharing it securely is the user’s responsibility.

No. All REDCap accounts must be established for a single individual and associated with that person’s email address. This requirement helps satisfy data security and logging requirements.

• Make sure you entered your REDCap username, not your email address, on the password recovery page.
• Check your spam email folder.

If you ruled out the issues above and still can’t reset your password, please contact the REDCap administrator.

From the REDCap homepage, click + New Project in the top toolbar. See the Creating Projects page for more detailed instructions.

Only full-access users can create new projects. If you need to create a project but don’t see the option to do so, please request an upgrade to a full-access account.

Note that only users with uic.edu email addresses can request full-access accounts.

We don’t impose a fixed maximum project size. The UIC REDCap server currently hosts a few projects with over a million records. However, speeds can suffer as projects get larger. Some tips to optimize project performance:

• When possible, split very large projects into multiple smaller ones.
• Large numbers of PDF files stored on the server can run into space issues. Consider archiving PDFs outside of REDCap.
• If you need to upload or import a very large number of records at once, schedule this during off hours.

Contact the PI or project manager to request access.

Project-level user rights are controlled by each project team, according to individual study protocols. The REDCap administrator does not manage user access to individual projects.

Visit the User Rights page within your project and search for the user by name or REDCap username (not email address). Users can be added to named roles or given custom privileges.

See the User Rights page for more information.

Users’ permissions are defined on a per-project basis. If you can’t perform an action within a project, you may not have sufficient permissions.

To gain access to a function within a project, contact the PI, project manager, or other team member with access to User Rights settings. See the User Rights page for more information.

Before leaving the university, please ensure that at least one other REDCap user has access to all your active projects. At minimum, this access should include User Rights permissions, as the next owner may need to edit their own rights or add others to the project.

The REDCap administrator will not modify user access to individual projects, so make sure to transfer ownership before you leave so your data doesn’t become inaccessible.

When a project is in development status, you can easily add, modify, and delete instruments, fields, and settings. This status is appropriate for designing instruments, testing options, and making sure everything works as you expect. Data can be collected in development status; however, because you can easily make changes that result in unintentional data loss, you should not collect real project data while in development.

In production status, instruments and some settings cannot be edited in real time. This is because some changes may unintentionally alter or delete existing data and compromise the integrity of your research. It also ensures control over the version of your surveys accessible to participants. However, you can still update your project in production status if needed. To modify an instrument, visit the Online Designer and place the project in draft mode. After you finish your edits, submit the changes for approval. Some changes will be auto-approved; others might be subject to additional administrator review before taking effect.

For more information, see the Development and Production Status page.

When your project is in production status and contains real data, REDCap may require you to review and confirm any draft changes. This step helps guard against changes that may unintentionally modify or delete existing data.

In some cases, such as correcting a typo or clarifying an abbreviation, a change to the text of a question doesn’t substantively change its meaning. In these cases, you can tell the REDCap administrator that you wish to move forward with the change.

But sometimes the review will reveal potential problems that could cause data to be lost or altered. For example, a survey might include the question “What is your favorite color?” with the following choice options:

1, Red
2, Blue
3, Yellow

If Subject A selects Red, the value of 1 is stored in the database. But if the response options are later changed to:

1, Purple
2, Blue
3, Yellow

Subject A’s value of 1 now suggests that Subject A prefers purple. The numeric code will be retained but the edited label will obscure the true response. Such data errors may compromise your analysis. The administrator review gives you a chance to catch potential problems and opt to reject or reverse the changes.

Instead of changing existing multiple-choice or checkbox options, consider the following:

1. Add new options with new, unused numeric codes. Feel free to reorder the options in your list, but don’t alter existing code-label pairings.
2. Don’t delete existing options if they have any associated data. Instead, you can hide options with a @HIDECHOICE action tag to prevent them from displaying on surveys.

A similar principle applies to substantively changing the text of a question. Instead, we suggest you create a new question with the new text and hide the older version with a @HIDDEN action tag.