The Data Dictionary as a Research Data Governance Tool - Custom Implementation in REDCap

Situation Data dictionaries have been a common tool in IT governance to document systems. The emergence of data governance has seen an evolution in data dictionaries - they now must properly define and describe data to govern it appropriately. Research data is governed at a project-level and within health research tools such as REDCap are used to collect and store data securely but also undertake governance activities such as quality checks. Currently REDCap has the capacity to produce an IT focussed data dictionary, which has limited efficacy as a data governance tool as it is not able to define or provide other metadata for each data element. The project must, therefore, maintain two data dictionaries which is inefficient and leads to inconsistencies. Tasks To create a custom Data Dictionary external module within REDCap that could be used as a data governance tool to communicate with stakeholders such as funders, ethics committees, collaborators and potential re-users of the data. Action Based on a successful Monash Helix Health Data Dictionary template, a mapping to existing REDCap functionality was undertaken and additional metadata items were created. An external module for REDCap was developed and deployed Result The resulting addition to REDCap s codebook can be output to Word in a readable and editable format that allows each of the data elements to be fully defined, a purpose for collecting the data and a source identified. This will create the basis for further refinement when additional metadata requirements are identified in the future..