Google Forms vs. REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture)

Appropriate Scenarios

• Data collection
• Formative assessment
• Survey/questionnaire
• File uploads (Can be limited to particular sizes or file types).

Inappropriate Scenarios

• Lessons where you need instant feedback to answers rather than waiting for the whole form to be completed.
• File Uploads where not all of the users have Google accounts.

Incentivized

Our main use has been for research studies. It allows HIPPA compliant data collection with a vast amount of customization options, branching logic to keep collection clean, and validation to ensure data collected can easily be analyzed. We can send surveys to participants in between visits and use forms for in person visits where a staff member is collecting the information

Incentivized

• Capture of information from clients and/or consultants for real-time analysis.
• Knowledge evaluation for our work team, the predefined templates allow the creation of tests and knowledge tests that are very didactic and easy to grade.
• The acquired data is cleanly integrated with google spreadsheets allowing for fast and accurate analysis.
• The form completion notifications are customizable and do their job well.

Incentivized

• I appreciate the ability to add/change items within a field that may be beneficial or detrimental to the patient.
• I like the option to sort by year in the main information hub, as well as put specific dates of consultations & meetings within a patient profile.
• Very easy learn and use!

Incentivized

• Edit view limits the questions as seen by viewers. The view function is nice to toggle between to see what the question will look like, but the edit view of some questions (like checkboxes) is confusing for the editor.
• It would be wonderful to be able to assign responses to go to specific users. The user needs to go into the responses section and select the option to receive notifications, versus the owner of the form being able to do that.
• Having a dependency feature for questions (in addition to sections) would be very helpful, so that if a question is answered a certain way, another question appears.

Incentivized

• REDCap is generally the best app for public health and clinical trials for both the academia and for-profit organization. However it is poorly marketed much effort is placed on the academia side though organizations like the pharmaceuticals, hospitals, insurance etc., would be willing especially when they get hear about it.
• REDCap needs to work on the user interface. It's kinda boring especially when designing surveys and when navigating for surveys
• The FAQ must be shortened , sometimes the videos associated with FAQ seem long.

I will definitely renew my use of Google Forms because I really like the ease of use and the number of tools that Google forms provide. I also love that I can administer a test in real-time and get results in a timely manner

Incentivized

The interface is simple and intuitive. The first time you use Google Forms, it has a built in tutorial that goes through all the basics. Most people can pick up how to use it with minimal support. There are some advanced features that require a bit more work but there are plenty of videos and directions online. Google has a great support section that is easy to follow

Incentivized

It is very interesting to me especially that it meets all my needs. The libraries makes the job even much easier, since you can just make a few adjustments to the appropriate template chosen

In the years I've used GoogleForms I've never ran into any issues with the reliability or availability. Google is a gigantic company with essentially limitless resources which makes it very easy to trust that I will continue to be able to enjoy the same reliability I've come to know and expect from GoogleForms

Incentivized

One of the things that comes as a benefit of the lack to create complex logic branching and truly custom design is that there isn't lot of room to bog down the software. GoogleForms has always loaded just as fast as my internet service and device would allow it. I'm not sure about front end integrations or integrations into the form itself, as I've never explored it, but on the backend, I've never had any issues with integrations channeling from GoogleForms from the GoogleForms's end of things.

Incentivized

I have not had to use Google Forms support - it's always worked as expected. However, with other Google products, I've always been able to find a plethora of resources for answering questions or dealing with issues. The benefit of Google is how widely adopted its products are and how robust its support is.

Incentivized

They respond almost immediately to queries

Google Forms is easy to use and affordable. The biggest benefit, however, is that our organization already uses other Google products heavily. Because of this Google Forms was our top choice. Some smaller departments in our organization still use other solutions, such as SurveyMonkey, but as a whole it has been helpful to standardize on a single product.

Incentivized

REDCap surveys is designed according to HIPAA rules, FISMA, 21 CFR part 11, ICH-Good Clinical Practices (GCP) and GDPR, thereby making it more reliable for this market niche.

GoogleForms lacks the ability for complex logic branching and the ability to truly design it in a custom manner. It's pretty obvious when you land on a GoogleForm that it is in fact a GoogleForm. This rating solely reflects the lack of flexibility which in turn makes it something that wouldn't usually be scaled. That being said, if needing to scale a simple solution, GoogleForms would be up for the job.

Incentivized

• Google Forms provides us a vehicle to gauge faculty and student response to our online courses and their features in real time so that we can keep our courses updated for students and faculty who facilitate them.
• Since Google is free, provides storage space, and provides Shared Drives (at least in our institutional account), using Google Forms helps us manage our data. We support over 400 courses with thousands of sections so Google Forms helps us manage the data coming out of these courses, mostly student and faculty feedback about what is working and what is not.
• We encourage our faculty to use Google Forms to survey their students for prior knowledge, for interest inventories, and the like. It's incredibly nimble and useful for collecting data quickly and presenting results in easy-to-understand charts and graphs.

Incentivized

• It facilities the research
• It ensures HIPPA compliance

Incentivized