Introduction
This forum topic is added following the feedback received by the first round of the Data Awards program. Its purpose is to serve as a knowledge source and guide for the awardees on setting up a data collection toolset for the Data Awards program’s current Round. It is posted here to receive feedback from the OKW community, the IoPA office, and the program (Data awards) awardees.
Collection tools
Open Data Kit (ODK)
Introduction:
The Open-Data-Kit software suit is one of the standard tools used for surveying within the humanitarian aid sector, it incorporates multiple tools to help design a survey, a database and API, a data exploration tool, and an offline collection app for Android devices.
The process of using and configuring the tool has four main steps:
- Getting an ODK-Central server can be a SAAS by ODK or hosted by the IoPA DevOps office.
- Designing a survey containing the basic questions to collect the data required by the Data Awards Technical Specification, and additional data used for your own purpose.
- Collection of the data using the ODK-Collect app for Android devices or the online URL linked form.
- Explore, filter, and export the data in any of the formats specified by the Data Awards Technical Specification.
Links:
Hosting:
ODK-Central, self-hosting install and configuration. ODK Central - ODK Docs
Form:
Define a form using XLSForm. XLSForm - ODK Docs
Collection:
Use the ODK-Collect Android app to collect your data. ODK Collect - ODK Docs
Kobo Toolbox:
Introduction:
It’s a fork of ODK with improved visuals and User Experience. It offers detailed documentation for self-hosted servers and a free hosting service for Non-Profit organizations, it uses XLSForm, and a Standalone offline app for Android Devices in the same way as ODK.
Hosting:
Form:
https://support.kobotoolbox.org/new_form.html
Collection:Overview on Data Collection Tools — KoboToolbox documentation
Data filtering tools
OpenRefine:
Introduction:
OpenRefine is a data cleaning software tool, it works by creating projects, where you import CSV, JSON, SQL, etc. datasets, then it opens a table where you can filter, facet, sort and clean data using advanced tools like text taxonomy classification, or phonetics to cluster and homogenize similar words.
Link: https://openrefine.org/
This document is a work in process, and it may change after following the reviews of the IoPA office, community, and stakeholders. Please provide your feedback in the comments following the community engagement rules.
Jupyter notebooks:
Here you’ll find a set of notebooks used to analyze data for the Open-Know-Where mapping initiative. Link
Database specifications
Form definition YAML file:
This file is intended to be a reference for the Form to be used for the Kobo Tool Box configuration.
Download file