Harnessing “ODK collect” on smartphones
for on-farm data collection in Africa:
The ILRI-BecA goat project
Main message
• Open Data Kit (ODK) collect is an open source
program in which programmed questionnaires
are implemented.
• Immediately digitizes data for analysis, allows
for remote monitoring of the collection
progress, and facilitates the gathering of data,
eliminating the need for paper surveys, and
therefore significantly reducing survey times.
• Supports data integration (GPS points, photos,
videos, bar codes, sound bites, etc.)
• ODK promises smarter data gathering and
management in developing countries where
mobile phone usage is rapidly increasing with
the expansion of service coverage
• Electricity supply, battery life and price of
android smartphones used are expected limiting
factors in harnessing ODK in African rural
context
• The project currently testing ODK collect for
baseline production system and phenotypic
characterization as well as on-farm productivity
monitoring studies in Ethiopia and Cameron.
Methods
• In this test-employment, ODK Collect program was
installed on Samsung Galaxy SII smartphones.
• Questionnaires harmonized for phenotypic and
production systems characterization in Ethiopia and
Cameroon .
• Questionnaires re-formatted to xml and partitioned
into seven components
• Xml questionnaires subsequently saved to the
phone’s device memory
• Each enumerator, issued with unique ID, can easily
access, complete and right away send the filled forms
wirelessly to web-based ILRI serves at Addis and
Nairobi.
May 2013
Expected outcomes
• Practical considerations and limitations in harnessing emerging
gadget technologies for data collection in African rural villages
context
• Statistical data on the relative efficiency of using ODK-based
enumeration vis-à-vis paper surveys in terms of survey time, data
integrity and reliability
• The prospects of the system ensuring a consistent, timely,
integrated and quality data transfer in the challenging on-farm
monitoring studies in rural African settings
How the Open Data kit (ODK) collect works
Addis
Server
Nairobi
Server
ODK installed
on Galaxy SII
Field enumeration using
ODK
Wireless
Satellite
G. Gebreyesus, T. Dessie, M. Wamalwa, M. Agaba, S. Benor, and O. Mwai
Grum Gebreyesus
g.gebreyesus@cgiar.org ● P.o. Box 5689 Addis Ababa Ethiopia
● +251 11 617 2331 ● ilri.org
This project was funded by SIDA
This document is licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution –Non commercial-Share Alike 3.0
Unported Licence May 2013