2021eResearchReport - Flipbook - Page 27
Section 3
Research Systems
and Infrastructure
Excellent research relies on excellent support.
Support which minimises the administrative
burden on researchers and frees them up to
do their most important work, solving the
world’s grand challenge problems. UCT
is working to build and maintain strong
research systems and infrastructure to
enable the sustainability of research at
UCT.
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Research Systems
The Research Systems cluster is a relatively
new addition to the eResearch service
offering at UCT, coming on board in 2020.
Research increasingly relies on systems
and platforms to manage not only the
administrative side of research, such as the
electronic Research Administration system
(eRA), but also in the process of conducting
the research itself. UCT eResearch, through
the Research Systems team, provides
the necessary institutional support and
training.
REDCap: supporting high-quality data
collection
Good data is the foundation of good
research. In computer science it is
described as the ‘garbage in, garbage out’
principle: poor data results in poor output.
Platforms like REDCap are critical to good
data collection, and REDCap is growing in
popularity at UCT for its ability to support
both online and offline data capture and
maintain an audit trail of all user activity.
REDCap is a mature, secure web
application for building and managing
online surveys and databases and has
proven especially useful for research
surveys and related fieldwork, says
Annemie Stewart, operations manager for
the UCT Clinical Research Centre (CRC).
Initially developed by Vanderbilt
University in 2004 to support a small
group of clinical researchers with a secure
platform to collect data, it has expanded
worldwide and is used by thousands of
researchers in over 140 countries.
“Part of REDCap’s appeal in the health
sciences is that its web-based platform
designs project databases that meet the
regulatory requirements around clinical
research,” explains Stewart. “It specifically
offers audit trails, secure user access and,
because it is hosted by ICTS at UCT, it is
backed up every day.”
“This kind of groundwork is important
as researchers don’t want to risk
having their work disregarded or career
reputation damaged because of missing or
inaccurate data.”
Demand for REDCap is reaching out
beyond health sciences as researchers in
other faculties see the value of a reliable
system for capturing and managing data.
As the demand for REDCap grows,
Stewart has joined forces with the
Research Systems service to provide
institutional-level support for new and
existing REDCap users.
Stewart is hopeful that dedicated
REDCap systems support will create
capacity for faculty-specific end-user
support for the UCT research community.
“The Research Systems cluster initially
plans to streamline the support service
for RedCap as well as building capacity
across faculties,” says Tina Seale, senior
manager of the Research Systems team.
“The next phase would be to improve
system functionalities to meet the needs
of UCT researchers.”
REDCap at UCT
701
451
36
2064
PROJECTS IN TOTAL
PROJECTS IN
PRODUCTION MODE
PROJECTS ARCHIVE
TOTAL USERS
Research Systems and Infrastructure 27
