Given the Consortium growth rate, the Vanderbilt team could no longer maintain a close connection to each new partner site and groups that were not proactive in their use of the Consortium mailing list were less likely to integrate with the existing community. We upgraded from a mailing list to a web-based, question-and-answer-style support forum software to provide the community with improved collaborative workspaces with searchable support archives. The need for additional communication mechanisms (e.g., persistent forum software vs. simple listservs, dedicated monthly consortium calls for Europe/Africa and Asia/Oceania time zones, expanded educational content for annual REDCap conference) increased need for administrative support. For-profit software vendors also began to regard the REDCap community as a potential market, attempting to sell alternate software solutions.
