The ResearchKit™ framework is an open source software framework that makes it easy to create apps for medical research or for other research projects.
- Getting Started
- Documentation:
- Best Practices
- Contributing to ResearchKit
- Website and Blog
- ResearchKit BSD License
- Join the ResearchKit Forum for discussing uses of the ResearchKit framework and related projects.
A task in the ResearchKit framework contains a set of steps to present to a user. Everything, whether it’s a survey, the consent process, or active tasks, is represented as a task that can be presented with a task view controller.
The ResearchKit framework provides a pre-built user interface for surveys, which can be presented modally on an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. See Creating Surveys for more information.
The ResearchKit framework provides visual consent templates that you can customize to explain the details of your research study and obtain a signature if needed. See Obtaining Consent for more information.
Some studies may need data beyond survey questions or the passive data collection capabilities available through use of the HealthKit and CoreMotion APIs if you are programming for iOS. ResearchKit's active tasks invite users to perform activities under semi-controlled conditions, while iPhone sensors actively collect data. See Active Tasks for more information.
ResearchKit includes a Charts module. It features three chart types: a pie chart (ORKPieChartView), a line graph chart (ORKLineGraphChartView), and a discrete graph chart (ORKDiscreteGraphChartView).
The views in the Charts module can be used independently of the rest of ResearchKit. They don't automatically connect with any other part of ResearchKit: the developer has to supply the data to be displayed through the views' dataSources, which allows for maximum flexibility.
The primary ResearchKit framework codebase supports iOS and requires Xcode 8.0 or newer. The ResearchKit framework has a Base SDK version of 8.0, meaning that apps using the ResearchKit framework can run on devices with iOS 8.0 or newer.
The latest stable version of ResearchKit framework can be cloned with
git clone -b stable https://github.com/ResearchKit/ResearchKit.git
Or, for the latest changes, use the master branch:
git clone https://github.com/ResearchKit/ResearchKit.git
Build the ResearchKit framework by opening ResearchKit.xcodeproj and running the ResearchKit
framework target. Optionally, run the unit tests too.
This walk-through shows how to embed the ResearchKit framework in your app as a dynamic framework, and present a simple task view controller.
To get started, drag ResearchKit.xcodeproj from your checkout into your iOS app project
in Xcode:
Then, embed the ResearchKit framework as a dynamic framework in your app, by adding it to the Embedded Binaries section of the General pane for your target as shown in the figure below.
Note: You can also import ResearchKit into your project using a dependency manager such as CocoaPods or Carthage.
In this walk-through, we will use the ResearchKit framework to modally present a simple single-step task showing a single instruction.
Create a step for your task by adding some code, perhaps in viewDidAppear: of an existing view
controller. To keep things simple, we'll use an instruction step (ORKInstructionStep) and name
the step myStep.
Objective-C
ORKInstructionStep *myStep =
[[ORKInstructionStep alloc] initWithIdentifier:@"intro"];
myStep.title = @"Welcome to ResearchKit";Swift
let myStep = ORKInstructionStep(identifier: "intro")
myStep.title = "Welcome to ResearchKit"Use the ordered task class (ORKOrderedTask) to create a task that contains myStep. An ordered
task is just a task where the order and selection of later steps does not depend on the results of
earlier ones. Name your task task and initialize it with myStep.
Objective-C
ORKOrderedTask *task =
[[ORKOrderedTask alloc] initWithIdentifier:@"task" steps:@[myStep]];Swift
let task = ORKOrderedTask(identifier: "task", steps: [myStep])Create a task view controller (ORKTaskViewController) and initialize it with your task. A task
view controller manages a task and collects the results of each step. In this case, your task view
controller simply displays your instruction step.
Objective-C
ORKTaskViewController *taskViewController =
[[ORKTaskViewController alloc] initWithTask:task taskRunUUID:nil];
taskViewController.delegate = self;
[self presentViewController:taskViewController animated:YES completion:nil];Swift
let taskViewController = ORKTaskViewController(task: task, taskRunUUID: nil)
taskViewController.delegate = self
presentViewController(taskViewController, animated: true, completion: nil)The above snippet assumes that your class implements the ORKTaskViewControllerDelegate protocol.
This has just one required method, which you must implement in order to handle the completion of
the task:
Objective-C
- (void)taskViewController:(ORKTaskViewController *)taskViewController
didFinishWithReason:(ORKTaskViewControllerFinishReason)reason
error:(NSError *)error {
ORKTaskResult *taskResult = [taskViewController result];
// You could do something with the result here.
// Then, dismiss the task view controller.
[self dismissViewControllerAnimated:YES completion:nil];
}Swift
func taskViewController(_ taskViewController: ORKTaskViewController,
didFinishWith reason: ORKTaskViewControllerFinishReason,
error: Error?) {
let taskResult = taskViewController.result
// You could do something with the result here.
// Then, dismiss the task view controller.
dismiss(true, completion: nil)
}If you now run your app, you should see your first ResearchKit framework instruction step:
The ResearchKit ORKCatalog sample app is a good place to start. Find the
project in ResearchKit's samples directory. This project includes a list of all the
types of steps supported by the ResearchKit framework in the first tab, and displays a browser for the
results of the last completed task in the second tab. The third tab shows some examples from the Charts module.
The source in the ResearchKit repository is made available under the following license unless another license is explicitly identified:
Copyright (c) 2015, Apple Inc. All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification,
are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this
list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or
other materials provided with the distribution.
3. Neither the name of the copyright holder(s) nor the names of any contributors
may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without
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