REDCap is available to Boston College end users at no cost. Boston College affiliates log in with their BC credentials. External collaborators can also be granted access to specific projects, but they cannot create projects—they can only be added to projects by a Boston College user (the project owner).

REDCap is designed as a secure platform, but HIPAA compliance depends on how your project is configured and how data are managed. Use least‑privilege permissions, separate and restrict access to identifying fields when possible, and mark all fields that contain identifiers so they can be excluded from exports when needed. Before going live, run Check for Identifiers to confirm your project is tagging sensitive fields appropriately.

Boston College users access REDCap with their BC username and password. If it’s your first time using REDCap, please complete the BC REDCap Terms of Use survey. External collaborators require a Boston College sponsor, who requests the external account during Project Registration and manages the account lifecycle (e.g., expiration) via the Sponsor Dashboard.

BC users: REDCap uses your BC credentials, so when you reset or change your BC password in your Agora portal, it updates for REDCap credentials automatically. If you’re locked out, contact the BC Help Center.

External users: If password recovery is set up in My Profile, use Forgot Your Password on the login page. If not, email your Boston College sponsor or redcapadmin@bc.edu; sponsors can also trigger a reset from the Sponsor Dashboard.

Add collaborators from within your project using User Rights (Project Setup or left navigation):

• Go to User Rights and enter the person’s BC username or external REDCap username (do not use an email address).
• Select the user and choose Add with custom rights.
• Grant only the modules/forms they need (principle of least privilege). Optionally assign a Role for consistent permissions.
• If needed, set a Project Expiration Date for time-limited access.

Note: Project owners manage project access. REDCap administrators don’t add users to your project, but they can help answer questions or troubleshoot access issues.

Classic projects collect data in a single event/timepoint by default (one ‘row’ of instruments per record). Longitudinal projects are designed for multiple events or timepoints (e.g., visits) and can include multiple arms and a project event grid. If you need repeated data collection but don’t want a full event schedule, you can also enable Repeating Instruments in either Classic or Longitudinal projects.

Yes. When you create a new project, you can start from scratch or choose a template and then customize it. You can also import validated instruments from the Shared Library (available when your project is in Development mode).

Move to Production after you’ve finished building and thoroughly tested your instruments (especially branching logic, calculations, and survey flow):

• Go to Project Setup and click Move project to production (Step 7).
• Optionally delete any test records during the move.
• Use Check for Identifiers to confirm identifying fields are correctly marked.

After a project is in Production, design changes require entering Draft Mode and submitting changes for review. Non‑critical changes are often approved automatically; changes that risk data loss require your explicit confirmation.

Yes. Use the Data Import Tool to import records from a spreadsheet:

• Download the import template, fill it with your data using REDCap variable names, and save as CSV.
• Upload the CSV in the Data Import Tool and review validation messages.

Tips: Be cautious with Excel auto-formatting (e.g., dates, leading zeros). Checkbox fields use a special column format, and calculated fields cannot be directly imported.

Go to Data Exports, Reports & Stats and either export all data or export from a saved report. Choose an export format such as CSV/Excel or a stats package format (e.g., R). If your dataset includes identifiers, consider using the de‑identification options to exclude marked identifier fields.

Yes—if you have the Delete Records permission in User Rights. Records are deleted from the data entry form (button near the bottom) and require confirmation. Deletions are logged and cannot be undone, so restrict this permission to a small number of trusted users and consider exporting/backing up before deleting.