1. How to Utilize the Consortium Resources / Community / Training Materials
REDCapCon 2017
Sue Lowry
University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Samantha Walkow
BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, Canada

2. What is the REDCap Community?
It is a website where we can ask and answer questions and share information about REDCap.
It is for REDCap administrators, not for the end users.

3. What can you do there? Search previous posts for information
Ask new questions
Answer others’ questions
Comment on questions or other postings
Upvote, reward, and accept answers
Organize materials
Make announcements
Download installation/upgrade files

4. What can you do there? (continued)
Share tips and tricks
Make suggestions and post your ideas
Add topics to make things easier to find
Receive badges for participation
Find consortium resource information
Get involved in the community experience
Report bugs

5. Getting Access to the Community Website
If you don’t already have access to the REDCap Community website, you can request access by
going to
sending an to and requesting the link,
or asking someone who has access to go to the Consortium Resources page to get the link for you.

6. Finding the REDCap Training Materials Repository
The Training Materials Repository is at materials.php
But you can also get to it from the Community website:

7. Getting Started
Once your account is set up, go to and log in.

8. Getting Started (continued)
Click on the “How to use this site” button and read through the information.

9. Getting Started (continued)
To quickly post a question, click on the down arrow next to the red Create button and select “Ask a question”.

10. Getting Started (continued)
When you start typing in your question, it will automatically pull in any previous postings that might be helpful to review before completing a post.
When I typed this
this appeared
Click here to see if it answers your question

11. Getting Started (continued)
If you don’t find what you need there:
type in your question
choose a space (default is General),
and tag it with some topic names to make it easier to find later.

12. Getting Started (continued)
All posts automatically feed to the main home page and trigger notifications for users who have requested notifications.

13. Content is posted in the form of:
Questions
Ideas
Articles

14. Content is posted in the form of:
Questions: You can ask questions that relate to specific topics in specific spaces. Questions can have both answers and comments to promote the exchange of knowledge across the community. Examples: 'How do I set a default value?', 'I need help setting up my installation please.'
Ideas: Ideas are statements that can have comments, but are not in the question-answer format. Examples: announcements, suggesting a feature.
Articles: Articles are more 'static' in nature. Although articles can have edits and comments, they are not in the question-answer format. Examples: landing pages, meeting notes, instructional documentation, or presentations.

15. Postings are located in SPACES
You can look through a space such as Announcements, Bug Reports, General, Tips & Tricks, etc. You can access different Spaces by clicking on the Spaces button at the top of every screen.

16. Search for information
Always try to find the information yourself before posting. It’s quite possible that someone else has posted the same question, idea or article before and the information is out there just waiting to be found. Searching first shows respect for other members of the community, and it will enable you to post a better question, idea or article if you don't find the answer.

17. Download Files
To download the files needed to install or upgrade REDCap, click on the red “Download REDCap” button
There are other files that can be downloaded throughout the website, but especially in the “Libraries and repositories” section of the Consortium Resources page

18. Reporting a bug
To report what you believe is a bug in REDCap, click on the red “Report a bug” button and give details about the problem that you’ve found. Make sure that you include information about what version of REDCap you’re on.

19. Consortium Resources
Use the red “Consortium Resources” button to get to a page with links for
Requesting access to the REDCap Community website (for someone else)
Committee pages
Libraries and repositories
Weekly and monthly meetings & REDCapCon

20. Committees & Groups
([Shared] Library Oversight Committee)

21. Meetings

22. Training Materials Repository

23. Thank You
Much of the information in this presentation was gleaned from Brenda Minor’s introductory and from the “How to use this site” page on the REDCap Community website.