What are External Modules?

External Modules are individual packages of software that can be installed and enabled by a REDCap administrator. Modules can extend REDCap's current functionality, and can also provide customizations and enhancements for REDCap's existing behavior and appearance at the system level or project level.

These modules are not developed by the main REDCap development team at Vanderbilt, instead they are put forth by members of the REDCap consortium. As such, please review your study needs and weigh the risks and benefits of adding a module from the perspective of your project and data collection needs.

NOTE: Please visit the page corresponding to the External Module of interest to familiarize yourself with any pitfalls or limitations of the module of interest which may impact your study.


How do I test the External Module on my project?

Testing each module for your project is YOUR responsibility. Please be sure to test thoroughly! Again, External Modules are created by REDCap users and shared on the REDCap Consortium Wiki, therefore, making sure a module works for your specific project is your responsibility. While the REDCap team makes every effort to ensure a module works as it should before being placed in Production, we simply cannot account for every scenario to which a module may be applied. Therefore, please test your module for your particular study. Think it terms of what impact a module may have downstream with regards to data collected.


How do I maintain my External Module?

External Modules are NOT part of the standard REDCap support package. Therefore REDCap upgrades may impact this functionality; there is potential for a REDCap upgrade to break the module configuration for your project(s). Therefore, we ask that you test your module with every REDCap upgrade and please send an email to help-redcap@bmi.cchmc.org alerting us of any issues you have when testing/utilizing a module.


How do I request an External Module?

To request a module for your project, send a request to help-redcap@bmi.cchmc.org.


Where can I find more information on External Modules?

More information on External Modules can be here.

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