How to create a survey for someone who doesn't know how to code and only knows very basix excel

Support
1

Hi Everyone,

I am trying to learn how to use ODK. I understand it a bit, but I'm especially trying to see if I can use it to design surveys for farmers, when I lack programming language skills, excel skills, and other data management skills. Can I use Build to create a basic survey that only contains open ended questions? When explaining, please keep in mind my background with technology is poor and I'm very new to all of this.

My coworkers and I are not technologically sophisticated so whatever ODK tool you recommend, we could use, but from my research it seems the build tool is most apt as it is the most user friendly. Basically, we will have field officers conduct surveys with farmers on Android phones, upload the info on the forms and then somehow get it to the central server. More information on this process would be appreciated. We have not yet selected an Android phone to use as we are figuring out the best one.

Any information you can provide about how to use ODK, especially the capabilities of the build Tool, for someone who knows very little about data management, programming language, would be very appreciated. It is all a bit overwhelming. The other option would be to use GPS devices and paper surveys, but that would be much less efficient so we are trying to do it this way. Thank you so much in advance for your help!

2

Yes you can learn ODK , because ODK is very simple .
You should go through with these documents
https://docs.opendatakit.org/
Also I owns a channel you can see videos there as well which is here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClQBjY23BjOU7zHonOZwiuA

You can also watch my videos. And This platerform has a rich capacity to learn.

3

ODK Build is a simple way to create surveys and it's good for beginners, however, it doesn't provide all options (if you don't need to build sophisticated surveys you may not even notice that but still). I encourage you to learn how to use xlsforms here you can find a form with all surveys https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1af_Sl8A_L8_EULbhRLHVl8OclCfco09Hq2tqb9CslwQ/edit#gid=0
I know it might be a little bit overwhelming especially for new users but don't hasitate to ask if you have a problem.

4

Hello Debbie,

We started off using Build and were very frustrated. Creating forms is Excel is much faster and much more flexible. One other comment, a survey with only open ended questions makes analysis and summarisation very different. Have you thought about providing some answers to your open ended questions so that most of the answers you get fall into sensible categories.

Please let me know where you are based and contact me if you require any input.