Dear ODK users, please forgive me for not searching thoroughly for these answers. I am on a project and we are wavering between adopting SurveyBe and ODK. As I am not experienced with either but generally prefer open source and free software I am in favor of ODK. However, there are other with other preferences. Would someone be so kind as to answer these three questions or directly me to were they can be answered?
-
Will the data be confidential when using ODK? Remember that per IRB requirements, we need to manage the data confidentially. One of the advantages of Surveybe (I'm not sure if ODK has this capability too) is that the enumerators cannot use the data even if they download it to their personal computers since the data are encrypted and only the "designer" software can decrypt the data into a CSV, STATA or SPSS format.
-
How good is the ODK software at validating the information you will be collecting (i.e., cross checking live during the interview). The validations are extremely important to reduce potential data collection errors. I think for us, Surveybe worked very well since the data were very clean, but I included a lot of validations when I programmed the questionnaire.
-
Will ODK work in the devices you will use? Actually, this is very important since we wanted to install the Surveybe implementer in a couple of tablets and could not do it because the software uses Java and this program was not (and could not be) installed in the tablets we had. Although this was not a limitation for us since we were mostly using computers, we could not use a couple of tablets that were available to us. If you use (newer?) tablets with Java already installed, then you should be good (though personally, I prefer computers since the screen may be too small in tablets, especially if you have wide tables in your questionnaire).
Thanks for your consideration in this matter!
Francis
w.r.t. data security:
You are responsible for the server that will hold your information.
The easiest way to set up a server is to let Google manage it via Google
AppEngine; in that case, as with any other cloud hosting solution (e.g.,
AWS, Rackspace), we must presume that employees of that company (e.g,
Google) will have access to your data. Encrypted forms protect your data
when you use a cloud hosting service.
Otherwise, if your team has the ability to set up and manage a database and
web server, you can set up your own server and manage its communications
(SSL) and data security yourselves.
The ODK Aggregate server distinguishes 4 levels of access:
(1) Data Collector -- interviewers with permissions to submit filled-in
forms to the system
(2) Data Viewer -- people able to do the above plus view the data submitted
to the server, or pull that data down to a computer via ODK Briefcase
(3) Form Manager -- people able to do the above plus add or update a form
definition, set up publishers to external servers, or delete submitted
forms and data.
(4) Site Admin -- people able to do the above plus add or remove users,
change passwords and grant all permissions to other users
So yes -- Data Collectors cannot see submissions by others.
The general flow of the information is from the data collection device up
into the server. If you need data to flow from the server back down to the
device, you must explicitly set up a mechanism to do that.
I would also add that the ODK server (ODK Aggregate) distinguishes between
···
On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 2:56 PM, Yaw Anokwa wrote:
Francis,
-
Use encrypted forms. http://opendatakit.org/help/encrypted-forms/
-
There are lots of possible constraints.
http://opendatakit.org/help/form-design/binding has a few examples.
-
ODK Collect works on pretty much any device that runs Android. If
you don't have Android, you can use ODK forms in a browser via
enketo.org.
Yaw
Need ODK services? http://nafundi.com provides form design, server
setup, professional support, and software development for ODK.
On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 12:25 PM, fsmart@gmail.com wrote:
Dear ODK users, please forgive me for not searching thoroughly for these
answers. I am on a project and we are wavering between adopting SurveyBe
and ODK. As I am not experienced with either but generally prefer open
source and free software I am in favor of ODK. However, there are other
with other preferences. Would someone be so kind as to answer these three
questions or directly me to were they can be answered?
-
Will the data be confidential when using ODK? Remember that per IRB
requirements, we need to manage the data confidentially. One of the
advantages of Surveybe (I'm not sure if ODK has this capability too) is
that the enumerators cannot use the data even if they download it to their
personal computers since the data are encrypted and only the "designer"
software can decrypt the data into a CSV, STATA or SPSS format.
-
How good is the ODK software at validating the information you will
be collecting (i.e., cross checking live during the interview). The
validations are extremely important to reduce potential data collection
errors. I think for us, Surveybe worked very well since the data were very
clean, but I included a lot of validations when I programmed the
questionnaire.
-
Will ODK work in the devices you will use? Actually, this is very
important since we wanted to install the Surveybe implementer in a couple
of tablets and could not do it because the software uses Java and this
program was not (and could not be) installed in the tablets we had.
Although this was not a limitation for us since we were mostly using
computers, we could not use a couple of tablets that were available to us.
If you use (newer?) tablets with Java already installed, then you should be
good (though personally, I prefer computers since the screen may be too
small in tablets, especially if you have wide tables in your questionnaire).
Thanks for your consideration in this matter!
Francis
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Software Engineer
University of Washington
mitchellsundt@gmail.com