title: data collection for statistics: from web to a database
body: <p>I'm a statistician by trade and I'd like some recommendations on how to set up a website that can collect data into a database.  For personal use, I use Google Forms to collect data, and everything gets populated into a spreadsheet.  However, this may not be appropriate in a more professional setting, especially when we have multiple pages/forms.  I imagine two uses:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>A website where I can send the link to others so they can fill out, similar to Google Forms.</li>
  <li>A website where only authorized users can log in to fill out data.  Think of a setting where patients are followed periodically in a research study.  It'd be cool to have the clinician enter the data directly into the database as he/she fills out the forms as opposed to having another data analyst transcribe his written forms into the database.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>The obvious solution would be to hire a web developer.  However, I like doing things myself when they are manageable.  I imagine a web developer would have to know html, php, and database knowledge (eg, MySQL or PostgreSQL).  My experience in these are limited to setting up a wordpress blog on my linux server.  My experience with html is also limited as I use emacs org-mode to generate them from plain text.  I hope to hear about solutions with a minimal learning curve.  My preference of course would be free open source software and Linux-based, but I'd like to hear all available solutions (our data manager is a Windows user).</p>
  
  <p>I recently read a <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/redcap-tool-collecting-clinical-trails-data?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+linuxjournalcom+%28Linux+Journal+-+The+Original+Magazine+of+the+Linux+Community%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader" rel="noreferrer">post</a> on Linux Journal that mentions <a href="http://www.project-redcap.org/cite.php" rel="noreferrer">REDCap</a>, but it seems you have to get institutional permission to use.</p>
  
  <p>I also tagged "R" on this post as I'd like to hear what R users are doing about data collection.  I'll ultimately analyze the data with R, but all data analysis begins with the scientific question and data collection.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks!</p>
  
  <p>UPDATE 10/4/2010: Thanks everyone for the responses so far.  It appears most of the third-party solutions proposed so far has data housed in a database hosted by the vendor.  I'd like to house all data in our SQL Server.  That is, data entry from the web enters the database in real time, ready for data analysis.</p>