Kirby Cook, PhD Candidate

Kirby Cook, MS, is a doctoral student at the Institute of Communications Research in the College of Media. Her research focuses on branding strategy, consumer behavior, and media effects as they relate to consumer identity. 

Tell us briefly about your research project.
Our research team, led by Prof. Michelle Nelson, has used Illinois REDCap for two projects; one focused on accessibility in advertising, while the other explored how transracial international adoptees learned about their heritage culture from afar. For the accessibility study, we used REDCap for two surveys with one of them including undergraduate advertising students and another with graduate students from the iMBA program in the Gies College of Business. Our research goals were to gauge students' awareness, knowledge, and practice of accessible design principles in their course work and professional experience. For the transracial international adoptees study, we used REDCap for a survey to explore how adult adoptees learned about their heritage cultures, ethnic identity formation, and material possessions that reinforced their various cultural affiliations. The research goal was exploratory in nature as we were particularly interested in the role that material items play in adoptees' lives. 

Why did you decide to use Illinois REDCap for your project?
The University's Institutional Review Board referred us to REDCap for our project, and after seeing how comprehensive it was (e.g., online consent forms, surveys, study monitoring), we decided to use it.

Have you/your team received research-related training or support from the Illinois REDCap team or other units/resources on campus? If so, how has this support affected what you/your team were able to accomplish?
The initial self-guided REDCap video training was helpful in gaining a general understanding of how the platform functions. While I haven't completed any formal REDCap training, I have made use of the online office hours, email support, and FAQs. I have found office hours to be particularly helpful when I lack the appropriate terminology to communicate with the REDCap administrators. In one instance, I described an issue I was experiencing regarding randomization, and the REDCap administrator was able to easily solve my problem by providing a formula to plug into my survey as an alternative to using REDCap's randomization module. I have had equally positive experiences via email as well, as the REDCap administrators are quick and helpful in their responses. The consistent and clear support from the Illinois REDCap team has been extremely important to the projects I have done, as their insights have helped to expand my knowledge on advanced functions and potential options for solving issues (e.g., survey logic).

Has using REDCap led to efficiencies or otherwise improved your research process? 
Yes, REDCap has greatly improved the research process as the platform allows a "one-stop shop" for consent forms, surveys, data extraction, and study monitoring. Rather than emailing or mailing consent forms and surveys to participants, the one-way intake has sped up data collection. The linking feature between forms and surveys makes it easy to keep track of completed responses and to extract datasets after collection. 

What should your colleagues know about Illinois REDCap?
REDCap is a great tool for any quantitative or qualitative research project! You can easily embed images, links, or videos directly into the survey, and there are some nice customization aspects to help create a more personalized project (e.g., banner upload, themes).