If you want a job in data collection or monitoring and evaluation in northern Ghana, this lesson matters. Enumerator and data officer adverts from NGOs, research firms and donor projects name tools such as KoboToolbox, ODK, SurveyCTO and CommCare again and again. KoboToolbox and ODK are the examples here; the workflow is similar across all of them.
Why special survey tools?
A baseline survey might send twenty enumerators to villages across the Savannah Region for two weeks. Many communities have weak or no network. Questionnaires are long, answers must be accurate, and the project needs GPS points or photos as evidence. Paper forms are slow to type up and add errors. Mobile survey tools solve this: data is checked as it is entered, saved on the device and sent to a server when there is a connection.
The workflow, step by step
- Design the form. The survey is built on a computer, either in a visual form builder (KoboToolbox has one in the browser) or as an XLSForm spreadsheet. ODK forms are usually written as XLSForms.
- Deploy it to a server. The form is uploaded to the project's server account: a KoboToolbox server, or ODK Central, a server an organisation runs or rents. Deploying makes it available to data collectors.
- Set up devices. Enumerators install the collection app on Android phones or tablets: KoboCollect for KoboToolbox, for ODK. They connect it to the project and download the blank form while they have network.