REDCap Platform-as-a-Service
Aidan Wilson1, Lyall Weir1 1Intersect Australia, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Abstract
Background
In early 2023, critical vulnerabilities were exposed in REDCap, posing a significant risk to the data stored by over 6000 partners worldwide. This incident highlighted a widespread issue: the lack of IT support for REDCap among smaller universities, medical research institutes, and non-profit organisations. REDCap’s licence constraints, coupled with the absence of a vendor support model, further contribute to the reluctance of IT departments to provide support for REDCap.
Actions
Recognising the challenges faced by these institutions, Intersect leveraged its decade of experience with REDCap and developed the REDCap Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering: a hosted environment with the virtual infrastructure necessary to run REDCap effectively while complying with REDCap’s licence terms, providing a viable alternative for institutions lacking IT support.
Results
The REDCap PaaS offering provides smaller institutions with a comprehensive environment consisting of development and production application servers, along with the flexibility of a local or external database, and optional AAF Authentication. The PaaS platform also comes with support from Intersect’s team of engineers and analysts who understand REDCap, both technically and administratively.
Conclusion
By adhering to licence terms and providing a compliant environment, Intersect’s REDCap PaaS offering enables institutions to leverage REDCap for data collection and management. The PaaS solution represents an effective way for these institutions to utilise REDCap’s capabilities while addressing their specific IT support challenges. This presentation will delve into the details of the REDCap PaaS offering, demonstrating how it enables smaller institutions to harness the potential of this powerful tool.
Biography
Lyall Weir is the Member Engagement Manager at Intersect Australia, where he works with Intersect members and the broader national research community around digital research platforms and services. He has a deep understanding of the research landscape in Australia, including both the operational challenges and strategic ambitions of universities and research organisations. In particular, he focuses on common challenges to organisations and researchers including access to, and availability of fit-for-purpose and cutting-edge digital solutions for research.