REDCap Recipes

Practical guides and recipes for working with REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture).

Live site is at https://uwmadison-chm.github.io/redcap-recipes/

About

This site is a collection of solutions to REDCap challenges that we've found over the years. It's not a general REDCap guide. The book is site is built using Quarto.

Local Development

Prerequisites

• Quarto (optional, but recommended for local preview)

Preview the Site

To preview the site locally:

quarto preview

This will:

• Start a local web server
• Open the site in your browser
• Auto-refresh when you save changes

Build the Site

To build the site without starting a server:

quarto render

Note: You don't need to build locally before pushing. GitHub Actions automatically renders and deploys the site when you push to the main branch.

Deployment

This site uses GitHub Actions for automatic deployment:

1. Push changes to the main branch
2. GitHub Actions automatically renders the Quarto site
3. The built site is deployed to GitHub Pages
4. Changes appear live within 2-3 minutes

Recipe Structure

Each recipe should include:

• YAML frontmatter with title, description, date, and categories
• Overview - Problem statement and solution summary
• Prerequisites - What users need before starting
• Solution - Step-by-step instructions with code examples
• Complete Example - Full working code
• Notes and Tips - Important considerations
• Troubleshooting - Common issues and solutions
• Related Resources - Links to relevant documentation

See recipes/example-recipe.qmd for a complete template.

Project Structure

redcap-recipes/
├── _quarto.yml              # Quarto configuration
├── index.qmd                # Home page
├── recipes/                 # Recipe content
│   ├── index.qmd            # Recipes landing page
│   └── *.qmd                # Individual recipes
├── assets/                  # Images and custom CSS
│   ├── images/
│   └── css/
├── .github/workflows/       # GitHub Actions
│   └── publish.yml          # Auto-deploy workflow
└── README.md                # This file

Technology

• Quarto - Scientific and technical publishing system
• GitHub Pages - Static site hosting
• GitHub Actions - Automated deployment

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Maintainers

Maintained by the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.