Introducing ResearchKit
ResearchKit is an open source framework introduced by Apple that allows researchers and developers to create powerful apps for medical research. Easily create visual consent flows, real-time dynamic active tasks, and surveys using a variety of customizable modules that you can build upon and share with the community. And since ResearchKit works seamlessly with HealthKit, researchers can access even more relevant data for their studies — like daily step counts, calorie use, and heart rate.
Framework
The core ResearchKit framework offers core modules that include a survey engine, visual consent flow, and active tasks.
The core framework comes with Swift and Objective-C examples, and full conceptual and API documentation. It has also been localized to many languages.
Using ResearchKit
A task in ResearchKit contains a set of steps to present to a user. Everything, whether the visual consent flow, surveys, or active tasks, is represented as a task that can be presented with a task view controller.
- Build surveys for modal presentation on an iOS device.
- Use customizable visual consent templates to explain the details of your study and obtain a signature from the participant. Be sure to get your visual consent flow approved by your institutional review board (IRB) or ethics committee.
- Use active tasks to invite users to perform activities under semi-controlled conditions, using iPhone sensors to collect data.
Apps
Several of the initial apps using the ResearchKit framework are also open source, ready for you to use as sample code or to bootstrap your own project. These apps are being used now to collect data to study a variety of conditions, including Diabetes, Asthma, Parkinson's Disease, and Breast Cancer.
These apps all use the ResearchKit AppCore library, designed to make it easy to customize for your study. You can get the source for AppCore, and for all the apps, from GitHub today.
ResearchKit and the ResearchKit logo are trademarks of Apple Inc.