Yale Study Support Suite (YES3) Exporter: Software Release for REDCap

The REDCap@Yale team has announced the availability of new software, YES3 Exporter, that extends the functionality of REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture), a secure web application for building and managing surveys and databases online.

The YES3 Exporter works within the secure REDCap environment to extend its functionality for biostatistical analysis. Key improvements for exports include additional layout options, a faster speed, and upgraded data dictionaries. The YES3 Exporter can be installed on existing and new REDCap projects, is intended to be used by people familiar with REDCap and includes comprehensive user-support materials such as a user guide, technical guide, and change log.

Other notable enhancements include:

• Flexible output layouts, to accommodate the requirements of data management and statistical software ("horizontal" and "vertical" layouts)
• Performance improvements over standard REDCap tools, especially on very large exports
• Options for exporting directly to fileshares, e.g. storage@yale
• Customized export-specific data dictionaries that include data distribution summaries
• Comprehensive audits of all exports, with optional daily emailed summaries

Baylah Tessier-Sherman, MPH, data manager at Yale’s Equity Research and Innovation Center, tested and is currently using the YES3 Explorer. “This module vastly improves the ability to export longitudinal data from REDCap. It gives me greater flexibility because I can easily interact with the data without the need for statistical software. I am thrilled the Exporter is available so I can incorporate it into my workflow!” said Tessier-Sherman.

The YES3 Exporter is free to use and publicly available through the Vanderbilt REDCap Consortium’s External Module repository. The YES3 Exporter was funded by Yale’s Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) grant through a Development Project Award in the Operations Core and an Administrative Supplements to Support Enhancement of Software Tools for Open Science (3P30AG021342). With these funds, the Program on Aging has gathered a cross-disciplinary software development team comprised of programmers, Linux ITS engineers, data management and informatics experts, and YSPH interns. Their goal is to develop a sustainable team-based research software engineering infrastructure while creating workflow support tools and releasing them to the research community.

For a complete description and list of the YES3 Exporter features, visit the REDCap@Yale website.

The software development team is currently creating a dashboard and a study portal tool and looking for volunteers for testing, validation, and feedback. If you have experience working in REDCap on projects and you are interested in being a beta tester, please contact the REDCap team via email. If you are interested in using the released software, you may contact your REDCap administrator and ask to have the YES3 Exporter External Module installed on your REDCap project.

YES3 software development team includes Katy Araujo, Venugopal Bhatia, Cynthia Brandt, MD, MPH, Peter Charpentier, Kraig Eisenman, Brian Funaro, Mary Geda, Kaitlin Maciejewski, Janet Miceli, Sui Tsang, and Brent Vander Wyk, PhD.