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Being the first of its kind, KumuKutu brings together Manufactures, Vendors and Buyers of Building and Construction Materials into an online platform for Trading and Buying. Manufacturers are set to showcase their products, vendors will open-up virtual shops and buyers will make direct orders to the vendors and Manufactures.

KumuKutu also aims to Build is Capacity by acquiring most of the Building and Construction Materials from all the registered vendors and manufacturers thus Buyers be able to directly order for supplies from KumuKutu Stores at similar prices as vendors would have sold. KumuKutu’s mission is to ensure that you Build Stronger and Spend Less on your construction project.

With KumuKutu, we are changing the face of the construction industry in East Africa by ensuring

1. Buyers get genuine building materials through direct interaction with manufactures/vendors at fair prices,
2. Buyers no-logger cheated by third parties as they acquire building materials. KumuKutu gives them the real prices,
3. Local manufacturers freely showcase and sell their products to a national and world wide clientele
4. We don’t charge any extra costs or commissions on products, Its ALL FREE

KumuKutu presents a wide Variety of Building Supplies, Tools and Equipment like Concrete, Cement & Masonry, Mortar, Cement and Concrete Mixers, Concrete Blocks and Bricks, Concrete Sealers & Repair, Hardware, Sanitary Ware, Tiles, Plumbing Equipment, Bathroom Accessories, Showroom, Graders, Pavers, Sinks, Toilets, Wash Hand Basins, Bathroom Cabinets, in Kampala Uganda, Nairobi Kenya, Kigali Rwanda, East Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Burundi, DR Congo .

The KumuKutu Mobile App (Android) is now avaialable on Google Play Store via https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kumukutu.mobilestore

Visit www.kumukutu.com to purchase all your Building Materials and Construction Equipment at your convenience.

 

Automate Monitoring & Evaluation

Several organisations run several projects and programmes to a chive their organisational goals and mandate. These projects and programmes are run across several countries and regions which requires a comprehensive approach towards measuring the performance and indicator mapping.  To measure their progress towards achieving these goals, Monitoring and Evaluations Frameworks are put in place to fast track projects/programme planning, reporting and learning.

In all circumstances, these organisations have common chain of requirements and business rules that Monitoring and Framework should Address;

1.Organisational wide goals and Performance Indicators;

2.All projects/programs contribute to the global organisational goals;

3.When a new project is started, it is setup with all levels of monitoring (Global Goal; Goal, Result Areas, Indicators, Data Collection tools);

4.Users are assigned to the various projects, programs and Global Goals;

The challenge however is when M&E Framework is manually operated.  It is time consuming, costly, delays data capture and management and is subject to various sources of errors. Manual M&E systems require Monitoring and Evaluation Specialists in each of the countries to convene all project implementers and start the process of data capture, management and reporting.

In order to better aid planning, monitoring, budgeting, reporting, and evaluation within the operational countries, project/programme implementers need to automate and align the manually operated M&E with the modernized and user-friendly Monitoring and Evaluation Systems. These automated system should be more efficient and have the capacity to accommodate all the performance indicators in the project/programmes Logframe, as well as give room for future enhancements.

Consequently, organisations automate and align their Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting (MER) Framework to make them efficient, stable, secure, expandable and inter-operable.

Benefits of Automated M&E Systems.

Through automation, the organisation will achieve the following benefits;

1. Ability to monitor interventions at the regional, national and local levels, including the baseline assessment component.
2. Ability to provide quick analysis of trends and comparisons against indicator targets. This calls for clear definition of tools for the collection, entry, and analysis of baseline data.
3. Ability to generate periodic (bi-annual and annual) reports. The system may at times have provisions for users to be able to customise the reports generated.
4. Making the M&E framework more user-friendly accessible on a secure platform.
5. Enhance the capacities at the regional, national and local levels in the use of standardized regional, national and local M&E Framework.
6. Ability to house all projects and programmes performance data and progress information in a single platform (periodic reports on program activities, success stories, technical training and events calendars);
7. Ability to import and export data to and from specified external databases into specified tables and fields, either through direct access or importing data from an industry standard data file format;
8. Provide interfaces for multiple users and stakeholders (Managers/Assistants, representatives from M&E, Finance, and Procurement offices, as well as Project Principal Investigators, scientist(s), and M&E officers);

Key Features to look out for in Automated M&E Systems

• The Results Framework

This displays the logical framework which has been set up by the system owner preferable the M&E officer. The results framework further expands to display the program and project logical frameworks at the different outputs levels

• The Dashboard

The corporate dashboard displays indicator progress against the planned in a Chart/Tabular format.

The program dashboard displays indicator progress against the planned in a Chart for all the Organisation’s programs.

The project dashboard displays indicator progress against the planned in a Chart for all the projects.

• M&E Set Up

The M&E set up enables users to change reporting periods in the system and also set up corporate logical framework, program logical frameworks and project logical frames works. this should also cater for linking to super goal, goal, purpose, output where all the indicator, assumptions and sources of verification are set up. The organisational programs and sub programs are also set up in this module.

• Project Monitoring
  • Performance report

This section allows Result area Lead and staff Member for the different projects to enter a performance narrative report;

• Knowledge Base

This section displays all publications and knowledge products for the different programs and allows users to add new publications.

• Progress against Targets

This displays project quantitative Monthly/quarterly/semi-annual performance. actual figures of project performance are entered here. Quantitative figures that have been achieved by projects are entered in this section.

• Projects Directory
  

This section displays a list of projects that are being undertaken by the Organisation and their lead institutions. It also provides for entry of new projects whether completed, close or ongoing with all its project information.

• WORK PLAN

The work plan module enables system user to enter targets for their projects, programs and corporate level.

• Targets and Baselines

This shows the aggregation of project targets and Baselines at Organisational level. All the targets and baselines entered for the various projects is aggregated and displayed at organisational level.

• Program Committed Targets and baselines

This module displays program annual targets and baselines. All project targets and baselines entered is aggregated and displayed at program level.

• Project Targets and baselines

This enables project managers and result leads to enter their project targets and baselines.

• REPORTS

This section displays the various reports generated by the system. Among them include;

Projects by program, country

Projects by funding instrument

Annual work plan

Annual Performance against Indicators

Cumulative performance against indicators

Cumulative annual performance against indicators

Performance against annual and operational targets

 

• Document Repository

This section contains a list of uploaded documents and also provides for upload of new documents in to the system for different system users to view.

• Indicators tab

Indicators can be grouped into categories (based on each Results Area) for ease of reference. There should be a provision to enter targets and baselines for the indicator for the reporting period, as well as the actual figures as picked from projects or Program) reports. Users should be able to view a summary of data per indicator for each project (under the M&E section), as well as cumulative totals per indicator (at report level).

• Milestone Chart

This tab should allow entry of scores on selected set of indicators. Milestone tracking can be done quarterly or semi-annually. The system should calculate percent completion over a specific reporting period and track progress if there are any follow-ups and remedial actions needed.

• Program Review

The System should have a generic tab that caters for performance review of each of the projects or programs. These tabs should allow for data entry where a brief update is given upon accomplishment of a certain activity. The updates should include highlights and key action points for the projects. The responsible staff would be expected to type a memo in their relevant fields and if necessary, send an email from the database for follow-up actions to be carried out.

• Locations

In this tab, there should be a list of areas where project activities are carried out. The lists should link Region, Country, Province, District, and corresponding GPS coordinates for mapping purposes. This section should also provide a brief description of the location.

Case Studies

1. UNDP

The Resident Coordinator’s Office (RCO) in Uganda developed an electronic Management Information System – eMIS: (http://ug.one.un.org ) in 2011 for the Joint Peace Building Fund programmes to increase the coordination, M&E and reporting capacity of the UN in Uganda. The eMIS has since undergone several revisions to first include all the UN joint programmes (JPs), and eventually the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).

The use of the eMIS helped to increase efficiency and reduce costs through a results-based M&E and reporting, and also boosted information availability and accessibility for evidence-based planning.

Dealing with Complex Questionnaires – Grouped and Repeating Fields – ODK & XLSForms

Much as ODK forms are easy to design and use, some users especially data collection teams with less programming skills face a challenge while automating highly structured and paper based questionnaire into an electronic tool (Mobile and Web Forms) for data collection.

Such users will fail to comprehend how best they can translate Tabular, grouped Questions and Sequences into ODK Mobile and Web forms. Their challenges may also include;

1. Failure to ensure proper flow between the different elements of the questionnaire and
2. Failure to add in logical checks and automatic fields for easy and quality data collection.

The ODK Build form designer presents a drag-and-drop user interface but will also not be of great use to users who want to implement high level logical flows between complex elements (Tabular and Groups) in the questionnaire.

Solution:

XLSForms are recommended for users who would like to deal with powerful questionnaire although you might need some basic programming skills.

Specific to this discussion, XLSForms present two important features that help in implementing sets of questions; i.e.:

1. Grouping questions

Tables present a set of related questions and XLSForms grouping function will put together such questions and contain their data for export and analysis.

E.g. For a specific household which has many residents, you want to capture some data about each member before you proceed to another. We have group all the questions into one set to be asked per member.

Nesting groups within groups

Groups of questions can be nested within one another: For Example, within a Table, each row can be considered a group of questions depending on the number of columns its covering or several rows can be aggregated into a group.

Skipping

One neat feature of XLSForm is the ability to skip a group of questions by combining the group feature with relevant attribute. For example, within a table, a certain row or column may only be required depending on the answer given in a preceding question thus we group a set of question and force it to appear when relevant.

2. Repeats

A user can repeat a group of questions and can repeat this group as many times as required by selecting the option in the form to start another repeat. For example if dealing with a large household and you need to have each member answer a common set of questions like Name, Age, Sex, et al. “Group it & Repeat it”.

Please note that its mandatory to define the number of times a group of questions should be repeated. E.g. If a household has 5 Members, let the user indicate it (using the using the repeat_count attribute) so that a set of questions appears only 5 times.

A repeat_count can be set dynamically (changes as the user is inputting data) or statically during the form design.

Data Related to grouped and repeated sets of questions will require a keen eye during extraction and analysis because this will at times be presented in multiple columns with similar name tags but differentiated the repeat_count instances.

10 Reasons for Mobile Survey using ODK & SurveyCTO

Why Mobile Data Collection:

1. Data is collected, shared and analysed in real time,
2. Smart and good quality with less errors. In-build error check helps a lot in reducing on the level errors in the data collection process thus little time is spent doing data cleaning,
3. Simple, Ease of navigation, ease of comprehension (More accurate results),
4. Ability to incorporate advanced form features such as picture questions, cascading, repeat groups, multilingualism, calculated variables, photo and sound variables, and graphic annotation,
5. Ability to read, modify and debug a form/Survey Questionnaire in multiple tools EXCEL XLS Reports, CSV, CSV Zip, google docs –gdocs, SAV Zip, XLS, KML, ZIP, etc
6. Easier to review, analyze, improve feedback from supervisors,
7. Ability to work with Multiple Forms/Questionnaire on a single mobile device,
8. Visually Appealing Interfaces,
9. Faster Development and Deployment of Survey Forms,
10. Open source, active Community & Support.

Integrated Programs/Projects Data Management

Traditionally, several development projects and organizational programs would have each program/project conduct their own monitoring, evaluation, knowledge & learning management via customized interfaces either offline (spreadsheets, desktop databases) or online (e.g., web enabled databases). While the solutions were practical for their own program/project, there was no way to aggregate the information to look across programs/projects, seeking commonalities, trends, learning and sharing with partners data related to the performance of the interventions being implementing.

With their global expansion and crosscutting projects implementation, most organizations and data management teams would like to leverage their information for cross project analysis/aggregation. They would like to have data collected at project-level, but made available to multiple groups of users in an integrated system to facilitate the creation of a reliable communication platform to enable accurate collection of program information, performance data, and immediate analysis all aimed at supporting knowledge management, monitoring & evaluation, learning and collaboration.

Organizations require integrated systems that can handle large volumes of data (Quantitative and Qualitative) captured from multiple sources, processed and availed to authorized users in a interface flexible enough to for efficient data analysis.

Integrated Programs/Projects data management systems facilitate:

1. Cumulative Measurement of Success (Organizational-wide),
2. Timely and Collective Decision Making,
3. Individualized/Program Specific Dashboards,
4. Centralized Results reporting by providing the ability to showcase results by administrative unit (e.g., program, project, region, department, commune, village)
5. Multiuser organizational wide system architecture that provides global content access with centrally managed datasets.

Not only will an integrated database cut costs (reducing costs for maintaining individual project databases) but it also brings harmony within an organization if all stakeholders have a single source of information.

Data Analysis – The Good, The Bad & The Ugly!

Over time I have worked with several Data Collection, Aggregation and Analysis personnel to implement comprehensive Management Information Systems for Evidence based reporting to support coordination, and decision-making on plan execution, monitor and track the impact of interventions, campaigns, projects or programs, informing planning, fulfilling reporting requirements, forming the basis of advocacy efforts (budget and policy advocacy) and providing an understanding of implementation and resource gaps, hence guiding resource mobilization.

It’s always rewarding to the stakeholders to get cleaner, factual and informative data in every information system to inform planning, coordination, and decision-making on plan execution and fulfilling reporting requirements thus a lot of resources and effort are invested to ensure that the system achieves its intended goals.

High quality data fortifies progress monitoring, visualization of results/trends to make informed decisions aimed at improving performance of and managing the execution of the interventions, campaigns, projects or programs to achieve results by providing indicators to;

1.   Track results and resource flows informing implementation and resource gaps;

2.   Engage stakeholders to focus and account for results;

3.   Support informed decision-making to improve implementation performance and resource mobilization efforts;

4.   Support accountability to report on progress with goals and commitments; and

5.   Facilitate needed plan adaptations and collective learning.

During Analysis, data may be termed: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

In many cases, we encounter cases where the Data Personnel (Field Teams, M&E Officers, Systems Developers, Project Leads) want to interfere with the data in different ways, tweaking it to showcase some illusion of the reality.

These unworthy personnel will alter the data to reflect dimensions that are not real and evidence based to either appease their funder or head office managers for examples “cooked up” achieved results (positively or negatively) against set performance target, presenting ghost respondents /beneficiaries, flat data sets (no database but figures added by the developer within the system code), etc. at times done with the knowledge of both developers and the data personnel.

 

The Good Data

I consider this to be clean, factual and informative data collected and aggregated with the highest level of integrity, clarity, detail and composition with no strings Attached. Whether figures are low, the data is reported as is with no modifications. This data is also backed with evidence in form of recordings (videos and voice), GPS Coordinates, documents (receipts, payment vouchers, signed training forms) and details of the actual data sources who even if consulted randomly will give corresponding facts.

 

The Bad Data

At times even when effort has been dedicated to gather data the right way, it may not be captured and presented in a clean, factual and informative manner. Data will end up having some missing fields and sections, wrong formats and altered figures, wrong respondents, poorly prepared on deliverable/attachments, all that make is it hard to analyze or generate reports that inform decision making or measuring performance appropriately.

 

The Ugly Data

Similar to the Bad Data, everything about this data is “dirty”, illusive and non-informative. At times Data Management Personnel will seat in one place and “COOK UP” some figures for the purposes of have good looking charts, graphs and table for reporting. You come across “Ghost” respondents and achieved results that are even higher than the sample size for example reporting that 100 people were trained in a room with a seating capacity of 30. The database may also contain nonsensical data-sets captured during the system testing, analysis and user training phases. Some respondents will also give illusive figures out of negligence, selfish interests or fear of the data being used against them

 

Mitigating the Bad and Ugly Data Paradigm

For clean, factual and informative data, information systems designs should integrate well with;

1.   People (data sources – respondents/beneficiaries, supported partners and their intermediaries, direct implementation staff and users of information across the implementation structure) who must adhere to the values and objectives of the activity/project.

2.   Procedures (rules/know-how/practices that facilitate information gathering, processing and dissemination)

3.   Technology (hardware / software / communications / infrastructure / publication formats).

 

Important TIPS for Enumerators – Mobile Based Survey for M&E and Evidence Reporting

For efficient and High Quality Data Collection using Mobile Based Applications, enumerators need to be cautious about the way they conduct the survey/data capture process. Some enumerators may also encounter challenges as highlighted in my previous article about – Common Issues & Solutions in Mobile Phone Based Data Collection for M&E and Evidence Based Reporting. In this article, we share about what every enumerator should Know before doing any Survey,

Every enumerator should;

1. Learn how to use the Data Collection Tools/Application especially getting skills in downloading Blank forms, Identifying relevant Blank forms, Filling the Blank Form, Editing/Updating Saved Forms, Saving and Posting the Finalized Form Instances,
2. Ensure Face to Face Communication with the Interviewee to keep them focused,
3. Handle the Smart Devices with Care and Keep them Safe,
4. Ensure that the Device’s Screen is Clean, Dry and Free of Dirt. Use a Cotton wipe if need be,
5. Take note of the Phone’s Battery Status. Ensure you have enough “Juice” before embarking to data collection. Turn off other unnecessary functions that have a higher juice consumption rate eg. Blue Tooth, WiFi, Location/GPS (unless the form requires capturing GPS Coordinates). (The screen’s brightness must be moderate, Turn off screen after the interview, Use power packs for mobile charging),
6. While trying to Get a Blank Form or Upload a Finalized Form, the server connection might prompt you for a user name and password. Some times these have already been pre-set on your device. Don’t Edit! or else Enter Your Credentials.
7. Before uploading a finalized form, review the form data to ensure all is well,
8. When Recording Location Data,

• Stand in a Open Space,
• Make sure the location setting is enabled
• Ensure that the data connection is active
• Disable auto rotation of the Screen.

Specific to ODK, Note that;

1. Enumerators will mainly use the ‘Fill Blank Form’ button to Start the Data Capture process,
2. If the Form you would like to use is not list under “Fill Blank From”, Click on “Get Blank Form” to Download from the Aggregation Server,
3. Enumerators will mainly use the ‘Fill Blank Form’ button, Get Blank Form should be invoked by the supervisor if you are not comfortable with the enumerators’ capability to do so. Its also advisable to delete old blank form before downloading a new version.
4. To go to the next question on the form, Please “swipe” as though you are flipping through a paper questionnaire.
5. Enumerator may fill out a form with text and numbers. The enumerator will use the key pad on the screen, or the phone key pad.For some fields, only letters can be used, and for other fields, only numbers can be used. Ranges may have also been set and enumerators must adhere to them.
6. To change the language of a questionnaire while the form is open, use the Menu button (bottom/top right button of the phone) and choose “change language”
7. Enumerators or supervisors can review saved data, by pressing the “Edit Saved Form” button in the main menu
8. The questionnaires will appear in the same sequence as they were saved.
9. Some sections are in Group of Repeating Questions and thus may be having constraints added to enable interviewers skip a set of question should they realize they had passed a wrong repeat count say, a wrong total number of residents.

For more Tips and Guidance, send me an email via nbamwine@outlook.com or Call: +256774231757 or +256753231757

Common Issues & Solutions in Mobile Phone Based Data Collection for M&E and Evidence Based Reporting

Gathering Data using tools like Open Data Kit – ODK, KOBO Toolbox and SuveryCTO offers great benefit like;

1. High quality, Smart data with less Error – Because of the Built-in Error Checking Logic within the Forms thus the data managers spending little time doing the cleaning. These tools also enforce use of skilled personnel in to use the devices and data collection applications thus improving the quality of data being collected,
2. Automatically prompting users to capture evidence based data by taking photos, Capturing GPS Coordinates, Recording Video and Audio Content. This gives a true picture of the situation of the field locations from which data is being collected.
3. Both data collection, entry and Analysis take place synchronously (recurring at the same successive instants of time) enabling the project teams to efficiently track progress and meet deadlines and reach completion within Budget.

This notwithstanding, using Mobile Data Collection Tools can be a challenge to some users especially if they are not well acquainted with the technologies and how they can be best used high quality data collection. In this section, I will discuss some of the common issues “Encountered” by Data Collection teams and will also give some Solutions toward mitigating them. (Using ODK).

Common Issues and How to Mitigate Them.

1.   ISSUE 1: Inability to instantly compare data in a previous form submission with the current instance of the data capture.

Solution: Data Collected using ODK is captured as a single entry. It’s until the data is aggregated that one can generate different files formats for comparison with other data. For Instance, you can generate a CSV or an Excel work sheet that you can you use for analysis and comparison with previous data sets.

The development of the data collection forms also matters, one needs to make sure that all fields have distinctive labels that will make it easy to comparison and analysis.

The data aggregation server also matters allot. ODK aggregate does not provide allot of data analysis functionality as is in Kobo Toolbox, Formhub or Ona. Kobo, Formhub and Ona provide allot of data output formats that are easy to analyze and if need be import into other data analysis tools like Stata.

2.   ISSUE 2: Data can’t be submitted without an Internet Connection

Solution: Indeed, submission of data requires an internet connection but this is can be done at the end of the survey. ODK allows saving of forms on to the smart phones memory card as independent instances. However, data saved in the forms will not require a high speed internet connection thus even a GSM / 2G network mode is good enough if the data sets don’t contain heavy content like videos.

3.   ISSUE 3: Batteries of the smart phones run out faster.

Solution: Some power saving precautions should be taken like:

• Ensure WIFI is off,
• The screen’s brightness must be moderate,
• Turn off screen after the interview,
• Use power packs for mobile charging (These provide backup power that users can travel with to the field.),
• Most Tablets like Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 are capable of storing power for more than 36 hours’ active hours. Today’s Smart phones are also packaged with Batteries of between 2,000mAh to 4,000mAh. This can give you up to 24 Hours Up-time before recharging.
• Considering that we are capturing GPS, we have to quicken the GPS coordinates capture time by enabling guided GPS via an internet connection thus users should ensure that;

1. The Location setting is enabled
2. Ensure that the data connection is active.

This in turn will reduce the time it takes to capture the GPS coordinates and thus reducing the active screen timing that would have used up the battery.

4.   ISSUE 4: “Freezing/Hanging” of ODK collect during the Data Capture Process.

Solution: Interviewers should not restart the entire interview because the ODK does not close the un finalized forms entirely even when the software is frozen.

Thus;

• Interviewers or supervisors can review saved data, by pressing the “Edit Saved Form” button in the main menu
• None finalized/Incomplete questionnaires will appear in the same sequence as they were saved.
• If you accidentally closed ODK: restart the application, most of the time it will open again where you left it.
• If the application crashes: turn the device and back on again. Restart the application and check if the data from the form you were editing had been saved. You should find it back in the “Edit Saved Form” menu
• If the screen goes black: the phone just went to sleep mode, press the On/Off button!
• Always delete the existing version of a form before downloading a new one

The software would only freeze if the kind of smart phone does not have enough RAM.

5.   ISSUE 5: Safety of the Data Collection Device – Smart Phone or Tablet (Damages due to poor handling, getting lost or miss use by the enumerators).

Solution: Interviewers should be warned about the devices

• Never leave the device without it being watched
• Never leave the device on a desk or bed, keep it in your handbag or the carry jackets. (Most smart devices have carry jackets that will provide strong insulation even if they fell down).

For contingency purpose, Data can be synced with the aggregation server on a daily basis. Supervisors or the interviewers themselves can be trained to send finalized forms at the end of the day.

6.   ISSUE 6: Inability to quickly Printout or Photocopy the Captured Data or Have it in different formats

Solution: The data aggregation environment should be configured to allow different kinds of output that is; EXCEL XLS Reports, CSV, CSV Zip, google docs –gdocs, SAV Zip, XLS, KML, ZIP, etc.

A data aggregation server like Ona or Formhub would provide such kinds of data formats and conversions. 

For more Tips and Guidance, send me an email via nbamwine@outlook.com or Call: +256774231757 or +256753231757 

Mobile Phone Based Data Collection for M&E and Evidence Based Reporting

To ensure evidence based reporting, monitoring, evaluation and learning, organizations are heavily involved in surveys for baseline assessment at Project Inception or impact assessment.

For many years, the use of papers and pen has been troublesome and quiet expensive effort to collect data. Data Collection and Survey Management teams have had bad experiences by;

1. Paper forms getting wet or damaged,
2. Receiving paper forms that were partially answered,
3. Unable to capture evidence data like pictures, GPS Coordinates, Video and Audio Recording,
4. Inconsistent answer formats,
5. Invest heavy effort, time and money to conduct data entry and analysis.

With the New age of smartphones and tablets and ICT, mobile-based and computerized data collection technologies and tools have also gained a huge following and their adoption has improved the conduct of surveys and assessments. This is because:

1. Mobile-based data collection compared with the use of paper forms, lessens the risk of losing the data when paper forms are damaged or lost.
2. Mobile Data Collection enables you to have media enriched location information from any place, any time and on any device,
3. Facilitates Monitoring & Validation of real-time field data. It’s easy to Analyze, share and publish your newly collected data or review and update your previous data.
4. Enables workflow and decision making effective by creating accurate and timely information in a fast and user friendly way.
5. Leveraging the power of numbers, there are almost as many almost as many mobile-cellular subscriptions as there are people in the world. People are using smartphones for SMS messaging and have access to mobile data connection, have you data collected on a broader scope.
6. In the absence of laptops and desktop computers, smartphones are cheaper and easier to use.

Application of ICT in Data Collections

Data gathering/collection and monitoring, evaluation (M&E) and learning have always been integral parts of Inspections, Audits and Reports, Market Research & Sales Reporting, Development work although  were performed with paper and pen, which made them prone to error, difficult to conduct on a large scale, and high in transaction costs.

The Tools and Technologies include mobile phones, tablets, workstations, software/applications that facilitate creation digital surveys and allows users to upload data to storage facilities in real-time thus reducing the conventional challenges associated with remote data collection and visualization, sharing/publishing, learning and decision making.

Data Collection Applications

Open Data Kit – ODK

ODK provides a set of open source applications which allow one to create a questionnaire form, fill it out on a telephone or tablet running the Android operating system, store and view the aggregated information on a central server, and retrieve the aggregated data to one’s computer for analysis

ODK has been used to conduct one-off surveys and rapid needs assessments during and directly following disasters. While there is a huge variety of online and offline data collection tools, ODK has gained a lot of users because

1. it is free, open source,
2. easy to use and
3. can be used both offline and online.

Since ODK is a free and open source set of tools which help organizations author, field, and manage mobile data collection solutions, ODK in itself has evolved in several platforms and formats such as Kobo Toolbox which I prefer to use, GeoODK, KLL Collect, Ona, Formhub, Enketo, each one seeking to customize the use of ODK according to their own needs.

ODK provides an out-of-the-box solution for users to:

1. Build a data collection form or survey (XLSForm is recommended for larger forms);
2. Collect the data on a mobile device and send it to a server; and
3. Aggregate the collected data on a server and extract it in useful formats.

 Extracted from Sheena Carmel Opulencia-Calub’s Article

Through training in the use of this technology, Data Collectors and M&E Teams should be able to;

1. explain the purpose of and use each of the tools of Open Data Kit and SurveyCTO set of applications
2. create a questionnaire form using  three different applications
3. manage the aggregate central server in terms of users, rights, form uploads/downloads, filters and exports
4. read and modify and/or debug a form in its XML format
5. download, use and set the parameters of ODK collect for optimal use
6. incorporate advanced form features such as picture questions, cascading, repeat groups, multilingualism, calculated variables, photo and sound variables, and graphic annotation
7. geotag forms and visualize them on a map

The Mobile Takeover

It’s a fact that people are spending more than 70% of their “computing” time on mobile than the traditional workstations – Laptops and Desktops.

“At least 12.9 million (37.4%) Ugandans are using internet, with more than half of these using mobile phones, according to Uganda communications commission (UCC) 2015 report”.

Every Organization/Corporation should by now be having its applications on mobile. Top managers should be able to track the performance with simplicity and ease via Mobile.

We should focus on engaging mobile users with productive data systems than social networking applications.