Question 2: Main challenges (Open 13 June)
Question 2: What are some of the main challenges with ICT tools used for these purposes - for collecting agricultural, socio-economic, or M&E data -?
Consider challenges such as validation and data integrity, privacy and security, technical and human capacity issues, trust, storage, and connectivity, among others.
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I am very interested in hearing from the community on this question. Without being in the field it is hard to fully understand the current challeges faced by field users. We have built a generic platform and features are added based on user feedback and requirements. Some of the challenges mentioned in the question, Validation, data integrity and privacy were a big part of our decision to make a native client, taking full advantage of the devices we support. A big focus for many is data integrity. One of the ways we have helped with this is by leveraging location data and other meta data with each record captured so you know when and where data was captured. Robust skip logic is very useful in helping get good data, skip logic is where based on a specifc response only relevant follow-up questions are shown. The less manual data entry for any project provides higher quality data.
Security is also a big concern for many and we have accounted for this with encrypting the local data base on the device, not storing keyboard strokes (keyboard caching), and allowing customers to encrypt field elements to a form with their own public/private key pairs so even if the database on the device is comprimised, the private information is fully encrypted.
I agree that Data Integrity should be high on the agenda when gathering and storing people's information - do contributors always know where their input and personal data is ending up? You might be interested to check out our Data Integrity Guide with respect to using SMS. This aims to show the path and potential vulnerabilities of sending text messages to help assess risk and adopt best practice when storing and sharing information.
One of my concerns is designing appropriate surveys for mobile devices including the type of questions used, the length of the survey, etc. Strategies used for paper data collection may not work. How do the various techologies for mobile data collection discussed in the forum thus far ensure the survey and question design is appropriate for the intended device and audience? Also, what training is offered in this area for customers who program their own surveys?
Hi Mckenziegal,
We at iFormBuilder have long been saying converting paper forms to digital format is more of an art than science. Building an digital form is not the same as "scanning" your paper form. From our experience, paper form tend to involve a lot of free text entry while a digital form should gear more toward pick-lists to standardize data entries. When designing surveys and digital forms, we always recommend our clients to start with what data they want at the end rather than simply trying to copy the paper form.
For that reason, we always support our clients in building their first few forms. Once you understand the major differnces between paper forms and digital forms, building them gets easier.
So to answer your question about training, we train our clients through examples. Our goal is to help our clients in building their first few forms and then be able to maintain them going fowrad.
Thanks.
Sze
We developed a mobile phone monitoring system to check the performance of Farmer Field Schools (FFS) and the facilitators in Kenya. We provided one mobile phone each to FFS asking them to evaluate and report back at the end of each FFS session (every week) via the mobile phone application. The data were stored in a server and we were able to see their performances anywhere in the world at close to the real time. The first system was developed in Kenya and the system worked very well for the first year. As a result, we dropped three facilitators. We exported the same platform to the Philippines to monitor the same. It did not go well. I asked FFS groups in the Philippines and they said "they don't feel like evaluating their facilitators who are teachers of our FFS." Looking back, I overlooked the cultural aspects of questions (data) that we wanted to collect.
Also, you need to insist to get feed back from the FFSs. I think this is an universal issue – it is not unique only for the mobile phone data collection. Sometime you need to send kind reminders to the senders. They are not always active in responding your questions.