Northwestern University Research Tools
The following tools are provided by Northwestern University (NU) and are available to NU faculty staff and students with NetID access. Please note that these tools are monitored and approved by Northwestern University. Researchers are encouraged to prioritize Lurie Children's approved tools, as permissions for NU tool usage may be subject to change in accordance with university policies. Use of Lurie Children's-approved and managed resources is encouraged.
Shortly, access to the below tools and technologies will be limited to individuals with NU faculty status or formal affiliation, and will not extend to those with only a NetID (e.g., research coordinators or other research staff).
Organizational Owner: Northwestern University
HIPAA Compliant: ✔ | Part 11 Compliant: ✖
Description/Function
Qualtrics is a web-based survey platform designed for creating and conducting comprehensive online surveys, as well as sending and receiving text messages with survey respondents.
Key features include
- Public survey links or individualized participant-specific survey links.
- Participant recruitment and engagement via text messaging.
- Reminder messages can be pre-programmed and sent to non-respondents.
- Advanced bot and false-user prevention tools, such as response limits, duplicate submission prevention, and required response enforcement.
- Secure media upload capability, allowing participants to submit PDFs, documents, and videos (one file per question, up to 50MB).
- Sophisticated conjoint survey design option, qualitative and quantitative analysis, and reporting tools.
Limitations or Considerations
- NU Qualtrics retains the same functionalities for texting and fraudulent participation protection as the Lurie Children's Qualtrics Instance.
- Shortly, access to this tool will be limited to individuals with NU faculty status or formal affiliation and will not extend to those with only a NetID (e.g., research coordinators or other research staff).
How to Obtain Access
If you are logging in to Qualtrics for the first time, you can access the main NU Qualtrics environment by taking the following steps:
- Go to http://northwestern.qualtrics.com
- Enter your NetID and NetID password, and click Log In
- At the prompt, choose No, I don't have a preexisting account here
- Note: if you choose Yes, I have a preexisting account here, you will be given the option to log in to your existing Qualtrics account. If you do this, your Qualtrics account and surveys will be migrated into the main Northwestern Qualtrics environment. You will lose access to any other environments' specific branding and additional features, if any.
- A new account will be created for your Northwestern account.
Cost
No cost to those who meet approval criteria (NU faculty or formal affiliation, or additions to a pre-existing study) to utilize NU resources.
Resources
- Read NU's Qualtrics Frequently Asked Questions
- For guidance on appropriate content of messages to participants, please see WELL--Artera--Messaging-Guidelines-and-Best-Practices (PDF)
Protocol Considerations
Researchers utilizing Qualtrics for participant recruitment, survey distribution, or data collection should ensure their protocol includes appropriate wording regarding data safety and survey administration. Please consult with your team to confirm compliance with existing IRB protocols.
Text messaging as a form of first contact with participants must be justified for the research population, as it is considered cold calling.
Additionally, the plan for any messages to be sent to participants must be outlined in your IRB application including what information will be included in the messages, how often messaging will be used, the times of day messaging may occur, etc
Below are two examples of language regarding considerations for human subject’s research protocols:
"For those approached through direct outreach, we will send an initial recruitment e-mail which will include a link to a Qualtrics screening survey to confirm basic eligibility, basic demographic information about the potential participant for purposive sampling and confirming their best contact information."
"Participants will be screened for eligibility status using an online Qualtrics survey. The public survey link will be attached to public recruitment flyers and will collect basic demographic and eligibility data from interested participants. Only the PI and study staff will be granted access to the project within Qualtrics. Any information related to the study that is viewed outside of Qualtrics, including data exports, reports, and stats, will be saved to password protected folders on a password protected secure server".
Example text to submit to IRB for review:
"You are receiving this text message as a follow-up to your enrollment in the ________ study at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. Please click the link below to fill out your week 1 survey." The previous message will be sent to participants one week following their completion of enrollment in the study, and will be scheduled to send at 2:00 pm.
Organizational Owner: OCCT in collaboration with Northwestern University
HIPAA Compliant: ✔ | Part 11 Compliant: N/A
Description/Function
RAADChat is an online communication tool for contacting research participants via SMS, MMS, and phone. This platform allows researchers to schedule messages and record and transcribe calls. It includes advanced features like bulk messaging and access management. Study teams access RADDChat via the web-based platform and participants receive a SMS text message on their phone.
Limitations or Considerations
Researchers looking to utilize RADDChat must have a NetID to log in.
How to Obtain Access
Researchers interested in utilizing RADDChat for their studies should contact the OCCT team. The OCCT team will facilitate the invoicing process for your project.
Of note, RADDChat use may soon be limited to those with NU Faculty status or an official affiliation and may not extend to research staff or those with just a NetID.
Cost
The cost for each study is determined on an individual basis by the team. The following amounts are estimates provided by the OCCT team:
- Pricing for study start up and annually is usually $1000-$1500, and each text costs about $0.50.
- Studies are charged around $50/month, but the range is $15-$200/month.
Resources
Reach out to the OCCT team for more information.
Protocol Considerations
Text messaging as a form of first contact with participants must be justified for the research population, as it is considered cold calling.
Additionally, the plan for any messages to be sent to participants must be outlined in your IRB application including what information will be included in the messages, how often messaging will be used, the times of day messaging may occur, etc
Example text to submit to IRB for review:
"You are receiving this text message as a follow-up to your enrollment in the ________ study at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Please click the link below to fill out your week 1 survey." The previous message will be sent to participants one week following their completion of enrollment in the study, and will be scheduled to send at 2:00 p.m."
Organizational Owner: Northwestern University
HIPAA Compliant: ✔ | Part 11 Compliant: ✔
Description/Function
REDCap is a secure, web-based application for building and managing online data captures for research studies. REDCap provides user-friendly web-based case report forms, real-time data entry validation (e.g. for data types and range checks), audit trails, and the ability to set up a calendar to schedule and track study events such as participant visits.
Note: Northwestern University's instance of REDCap is 21 CRF Part 11 compliant and allows for the use of e-consent. Allows for texting to participants through the integrated software, either Twilio or Mosio (depending on the date of project creation in NU REDCap), only after consent is obtained. Text messages must include a survey link to the participant, and cannot be used as an intervention or for recruitment. Text messaging function can be used to remind participants of repetitive or specially timed surveys..
Limitations or Considerations
- Can share public links to data collection surveys or can send individual links to direct participants.
- Does not have many tools to prevent or track bots/false users. Surveys have an option for participants to upload photos.
- You must be on the Northwestern University network (VPN) to log on and utilize NU REDCap.
- If you are working on a long-term existing study being conducted through NU REDCap, you may continue utilizing it, if not, you should use Lurie REDCap.
To improve security, compliance, and resource utilization, Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine have introduced criteria for which projects are able to be hosted in the Northwestern University REDCap instance:
- Funded research projects that include Northwestern University as a performance site (prime or subaward) and have the appropriate data use agreements in place are eligible to be hosted in the Northwestern University REDCap instance.
- If you are working on a long-term existing study being conducted through NU REDCap, you may continue utilizing it, if not, you should use Lurie Children's REDCap.
- All other projects should be hosted in the new Lurie Children’s REDCap instance.
For questions regarding eligibility for use of Northwestern University's REDCap instance, contact REDCap at Northwestern University.
How to Obtain Access
Shortly, access to this tool will be limited to individuals with NU faculty status or formal affiliation and will not extend to those with only a NetID (e.g., research coordinators or other research staff).
Adding a research staff member to an existing project in NU REDCap requires additional approval and creation of a unique NetID for that individual – please submit your request for a NetID.
Staff members will then need to be added to the existing project by the project owner in NU REDCap - see details on NU REDCap.
If you are looking to start a new project on NU REDCap, you'll need to become a project owner:
- Email REDCap at Northwestern University with your name and NetID to request access to the REDCap New Project Owner training.
- Complete the New Project Owner Online Training, sign the attestation when prompted within the training and provide any supplementary materials if requested by the REDCap team.
- The REDCap team will review your materials and determine access within 24 to 48 hours of your submission.
Once you have been approved as a project owner, you can request a new project.
Cost
Free to use, when approved for use due to faculty position or for continued use on pre-approved or created study utilizing NU REDCap.
Resources
- Access NU REDCap at NU REDCap Login.
- Additional information can be found at REDCap: Feinberg Information Technology: Feinberg School of Medicine
Protocol Considerations
The plan for any messages to be sent to participants must be outlined in your IRB application including what information will be included in the messages, how often messaging will be used, the times of day messaging may occur, etc
Example language regarding use of REDCap surveys with research participants:
"Primary consenting caregiver and family-level variables – survey report."
"Study staff will approach parental guardian (hereafter “parent”) of eligible patient and obtain informed electronic consent (and/or assent) for both collecting patient and parent participation using REDCap.
-
- If parents decline, staff will use a script to solicit reasons to assess reach outcomes and record it into REDCap."
"The selected Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs) will be administered using web-platform Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap), which enables web-link access via multiple user-preferred platforms (e.g., by electronic tablet, computer, smartphone)."
Organizational Owner: Northwestern University
HIPAA Compliant: ✔ | Part 11 Compliant: N/A
Description/Function
Northwestern University REDCap has the capability to send SMS text messages to survey respondents by using the third-party web service, Twilio. Study teams can access Twilio via their NU REDCap project, and once sent, participants receive a SMS text message on their phone.
Twilio can be used to share public links to data collection surveys or to send individual links to each participant. Surveys in REDCap can then have an option for participants to upload photos. Participants can text back "STOP" or "START" to unsubscribe/resubscribe from receiving surveys via text message.
Limitations or Considerations
For the latest information on texting integration softwares partnered with NU REDCap, please contact Northwestern University REDCap support.
- To be used in tandem with NU REDCap. Allows texting to participants only after consent is obtained.
- Text messages must include a survey link to the participant, so texting on this platform cannot be used as an intervention or for recruitment but can be used to remind participants of repetitive or specially timed surveys.
- If you are working on a long-term ongoing study being conducted through NU REDCap, you may continue utilizing it, if not, strongly consider using Lurie Children's REDCap with Mosio integration.
How to Obtain Access
Shortly, access to this tool will be limited to individuals with NU faculty status or formal affiliation.
- Staff must have a NU NetID and a REDCap project created to request a Twilio account. Please submit an API request for the use of Twilio via the API request form.
- API Requests will be reviewed by REDCap Support/FSMIT Data Security teams. Contact Northwestern University REDCap support with any additional questions.
Cost
Texts sent in the US (SMS only, for all carriers), cost $0.0079 per text.
Resources
- Contact Northwestern University REDCap support
- Visit Twilio's Improve Participant Engagement in REDCap Healthcare Research page.
- Read WELL--Artera--Messaging-Guidelines-and-Best-Practices (PDF) for guidance on appropriate content of messages to participants.
Protocol Considerations
Text messaging as a form of first contact with participants must be justified for the research population, as it is considered cold calling.
Additionally, the plan for any messages to be sent to participants must be outlined in your IRB application including what information will be included in the messages, how often messaging will be used, the times of day messaging may occur, etc
Example of protocol language when considering use of Twilio to communicate with participants:
"For text reminders sent via REDCap, we will utilize centralized messaging service Twilio, which allows research professionals to send text reminders on the REDCap platform. Twilio is certified under ISO/IEC 27001, secures data between customer applications, and supports TLS 1.2 encryption".
Example text to submit to IRB for review:
"You are receiving this text message as a follow-up to your enrollment in the ________ study at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Please click the link below to fill out your week 1 survey." The previous message will be sent to participants one week following their completion of enrollment in the study, and will be scheduled to send at 2:00 p.m.”
Organizational Owner: Northwestern University
HIPAA Compliant: N/A | Part 11 Compliant: N/A
Description/Function
Northwestern University faculty, staff, and students can easily build and manage websites and blogs — free of charge — for academic and research purposes. Offered in partnership with CampusPress, a leading host of the WordPress content management system for educational institutions, NUsites is a WordPress publishing environment that provides managed security and updates.
Limitations or Considerations
- Website layouts are pre-existing, with limited options.
- Editing system can be difficult to orient to, and updates to the website may take extra time.
How to Obtain Access
NUsites is currently available for all staff with a NetID.
Cost
Free for those with a pre-existing NetID.
Resources
Visit NUsites for more information.
Protocol Considerations
When creating a webpage for an individual research lab or researcher profile, no protocol considerations exist. If you are planning to post recruitment or participant-facing information on your webpage, that content must follow the guidelines for media creation listed below.
General Guidelines for Media Creation
When creating media content for either recruitment or intervention purposes, you are required to submit any wording to be included, a description of the intended graphics, and an overview of the media’s objectives for approval by the Institutional Review Board.
Submission Process
- Initial Script Submission: Submit the English-language content (wording, script, information) to the IRB during the initial review process. Wait for approval before proceeding with media creation and translation. If the IRB suggests edits, address them before moving forward.
- Final Media Submission: Once the media content is finalized, submit a modification in RASCAL to request review of the final version. The final submission should include either access to the product, screenshots, or a PDF version of the materials for IRB review
