Tech Your Methods//Using Open Data Kit for Domestic Unit Surveys

Our first period of fieldwork in Gitting really helped us as a research group to identify ways in which we could improve and ‘streamline’ data collection. One of the most time consuming tasks post-fieldwork is translating rapidly scribbled notes, often in each researcher’s own style of shorthand, into data that can be analysed and understood by other researchers, or indeed ourselves!

During this first period of fieldwork, both Vesa and I recorded our interview data the old-fashioned way – in notebooks.

When it came to translating these into the ubiquitous excel spreadsheet, this took a serious amount of time. First, designing a spreadsheet that several researchers can populate with data takes time. Then, the time consuming task of inputting hand-written data comes. Surely there is a better way to collect these data?

There is. It is called ODK – Open Data Kit – and currently Olivia and Dan are working hard to get this up and running.

ODK is an online platform which allows you to design your survey in excel and then translate it into a user friendly app for Android devices. In our case we are using tablets to administer the survey. Obviously this does not negate the need to carry a notebook for making qualitative observations, but it will make the quantitative element of our methods simpler.

Once this is done, we will have a way to quickly record the data that we want, minimize the opportunity to make errors or miss things out, and the data entry is done for us – ODK translates your survey data back into an excel document for you.

Designing the survey so far has been challenging. Once we got our heads around writing the code in excel, then it has been a question of what order to place things in, working out which questions will follow dependent on previous responses, etc. However, it should be easy enough to add, alter or remove questions from the survey once we have it up and running.

This will be important for our different study sites. For some villages, it may not be relevant, for example, to ask about pigs, because no one owns them. In other villages, it might be really important to have a more detailed understanding of remittance money. The great thing about ODK is that we can do this. We can make changes to it, and while we have a list of survey questions that will be the same across study sites for the sake of commensurability, there will be others that will vary depending on the study site. ODK allows us to tailor the survey to each study site.

Setting up ODK takes time. This investment of time at the beginning will, we hope, expedite the data entry for analysis at a later stage in the project. Not only will it make data entry quicker and easier, but it also means that everything can be stored on the cloud, making our data safer and more secure. This is great for us, and for the peace of mind of our participants.