Intersect's Aidan Wilson named REDCap Consortium MVP

“The MVP award”, says Brenda Minor, Principal Relationship Manager for Vanderbilt University Medical Centre, “acknowledges the consortium member who has reflected the epitome of excellence in the way that person has freely provided support to our ever-growing and diverse group of REDCap administrators from around the world”.

While presenting the award during the opening session of the conference, REDCap co-creator Paul Harris listed Wilson’s recent achievements including the development of four REDCap customization modules that have been used hundreds of times by researchers across the world, active participation in eastern hemisphere consortium calls, influencing the evolution of REDCap with suggestions for features and improvements, and regularly assisting thousands of administrators throughout the world by responding to support and information requests.

“The REDCap Consortium is centered around a software platform”, said Harris, “but the real power comes from people like Aidan who are supporting one another and successfully empowering researchers to conduct innovative and impactful science. Aidan is incredibly bright and very generous with his time in supporting local researchers at Australian Catholic University, our development team at Vanderbilt, and also REDCap administrators around the world.”

In a pre-recorded acceptance speech, Wilson paid tribute to the community of REDCap administrators from whom he has learned huge amounts. “It brings me great joy to have been able to pay it forward more recently and help others”, he said.

“Anyone who knows me knows that I talk about REDCap a lot” Wilson said, reflecting on the award. “It’s a great application to be involved in — not just because of the constant challenges it brings, especially at ACU, where researchers are continually pushing REDCap to its limits — but also because of the diverse community of administrators around the world. We all learn from each other’s expertise and experience, and I can honestly say that my technical skills across the whole technology stack have improved significantly as a result.”

ACU’s Professor Gert-Jan Pepping, himself a REDCap power user, says the award comes as no surprise. “Aidan has helped our team considerably over the last year in converting a tried and tested paper-based methodology into a paperless version supported by REDCap. Aidan’s detailed and versatile knowledge of this platform, its strengths and limitations, as well as his patience in working with us as a user group, were critical to us getting this over the line.”

Director of Research Services at ACU, Associate Professor Michael Baker, likewise acknowledged Wilson’s achievements, thanking him for his “outstanding support of ACU researchers and research students and for his generous contributions to the REDCap Eastern Hemisphere association and the broader REDCap consortium.”

The REDCap consortium has more than 6000 partners internationally, some 300 in Australia, and more that 2 million users worldwide. It is growing as a standard for electronic data collection, particularly aimed at secure health and medical data, but extensible to a multitude of other types of uses.

Most of Intersect’s member universities have REDCap systems, some hosted by Intersect, and our team of Digital Research Analysts, including Wilson, work closely with members to ensure that REDCap systems are operating smoothly and that users can access vital training and support.