Oxfam selects SurveyCTO as one of its ‘most valuable tools’
Oxfam, a long-time SurveyCTO user, recently released their "Mobile Survey Toolkit," which identifies SurveyCTO as one of its "most valuable tools" for mobile data collection.
Improving patient safety in Kenya with the World Bank Group
The Kenya Patient Safety Impact Evaluation (KePSIE) is a unique partnership between the Kenyan Government and the World Bank Group (WBG). It is the largest trial to date aimed at improving patient safety in low- and middle-income countries. We wanted to learn more about KePSIE and how SurveyCTO is playing a role in the research, so we reached out to Guadalupe Bedoya, an economist in the Development Impact Evaluation team at the World Bank's Research Group and the Team Leader and co-principal investigator of the impact evaluation.
Considerations when working with service providers
Many organizations work with service providers and local survey firms to implement their research projects. But how do you ensure data quality, data security, and timely – even immediate – access to your data? If you work with service providers or survey firms, you can demand that they use a data collection technology like SurveyCTO and set up simple yet powerful systems for quality control and real-time monitoring.
Considerations for service providers
When you use SurveyCTO for your data collection, you collect better data, your data is more secure, and your turn-around time is faster. As a service provider or survey firm, you may have encountered prospective or current clients who wanted to learn more about the opportunities afforded by digital data collection. To help you make the case for digital data collection, we've created the resources below from the perspective of a service provider. Feel free to adapt these materials when discussing SurveyCTO with your clients.
Running lab-in-the-field experiments in Haiti
What are the advantages - and challenges - of running an experiment in the field rather than in a lab? We recently caught up with long-time SurveyCTO user Abbie Turiansky about her research, specifically the lab-in-the-field experiments she has run in Haiti. Abbie is a PhD candidate at UC Davis in the Agricultural and Resource Economics department, focusing on social behavior related to the provision and management of public goods and common-pool resources.
SurveyCTO Photos from the Field: July 2016
We're kicking off a new series for the SurveyCTO blog - photos from our users around the world. This round, we're featuring submissions from the Philippines, Mozambique, Uganda, and more.
Integrating immigrants in Chile
During the past few years, Chile has seen a marked increase in the number of immigrants entering the country, many of whom are seeking better economic conditions. Public policy has not kept pace with the complex realities on the ground; as such, the J-PAL Latin America and the Caribbean (J-PAL LAC) sees a critical role for the generation of evidence than can inform policy and programming. We connected with J-PAL LAC's Constanza Palacios to learn more about one of their current projects, "Integration of migrants in Chile: the impact of networking."
Launch party photos
Thank you to everyone who joined us last week for the Dobility India launch party in Cambridge. It was great to see familiar faces and make new friends in the social impact and technology world. As Chris said in his remarks, we wouldn't be here without you, our amazing community of supporters and users!
Survey design and lessons from India
Sumeet Patil is the Research Director at NEERMAN, an impact evaluation and policy research organization based in Mumbai that works in water and sanitation, environmental health, agriculture, energy, and disaster management. Sumeet oversees research study design, quality control, data analysis, and publishing, and he leads strategic business development for the organization. We asked Sumeet to tell us about a few recent projects, how he uses SurveyCTO, and why he recommends transitioning away from paper-based surveys.
Small data, big impact: Panel and launch party
Please join Dobility India for a panel discussion and party in celebration of our India launch. We will be discussing "Small data, big impact: Innovations and best practices in high-quality data collection" with local and global experts as we contribute to building a stronger community of organizations and individuals collecting quality data.
Evaluating girls’ education with Social Impact
How do you encourage girls to enroll in school and engage them sufficiently so they continue their education? We asked Woubedle Alemayehu, the senior program manager in the impact evaluation unit at Social Impact, to tell us more about the evaluation for the Discovery Learning Alliance Discovery Girls Education Project she's leading in Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria.
Data quality and measurement: A call to action
The true front line for data quality – the place where the battle for data accuracy is often won or lost – is the point of original data collection. This is the reason why we have been focusing our SurveyCTO efforts on how to help our users collect higher-quality data, and the reason why we’re painfully aware of the so many ways that we and our users could do better.
Announcing our free Community edition
Today I'm thrilled to announce Dobility's launch of a free "Community" edition of SurveyCTO. This free edition is designed to enable smaller non-profits, researchers, students, and other small-scale users to collect better data in the field. In tandem with our new online form designer, it will enable new users to easily get started with digital data collection, regardless of their budget or technical skill set. We hope that it will deepen our social impact and expand global support for best practices in data collection.
Improving urban sanitation in West Africa
Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), a research and policy non-profit, has been studying how market interventions can improve access to sanitation around the world. To learn more about the latest developments in West Africa and how IPA is using SurveyCTO in the field, we connected with Shoshana Griffith, who manages multiple IPA urban sanitation projects in the region.
Financial Coaching in Peru
How do you develop a successful financial coaching program? Jonathan Rollins, a Senior Research Associate with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), is working with IPA partners to design, build, implement, and test a financial coaching program in Peru that consolidates sector- and context-specific knowledge with academic research and industry best practices. We asked Jonathan to describe his work and how his project is using SurveyCTO as a client management tool.
How to become a Maximum Diva in Zambia
How do you improve access to family planning resources and reduce rates of HIV infection in Sub-Saharan Africa? In Zambia, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) researchers are studying the mass distribution and marketing campaign for the new Maximum Diva Woman’s Condom to help answer these questions. We connected with Jessie Pinchoff, one of the principal investigators (PI's) on the project, to learn more about Maximum Diva (Ed. Note: best product name ever), how IPA is structuring their research, and how SurveyCTO is being used to support IPA's work.
Providing essential medicines with the Clinton Health Access Initiative
The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), a long-time SurveyCTO user, works with governments and NGOs to identify and tackle many of the largest barriers to effective treatment and care for diarrhea, AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other treatable diseases. We reached out to Shreya Agrawal, Program Manager for Country Support in the Essential Medicines Program, to learn more about her work and how her team is using SurveyCTO in the field.
Lessons on data security from MIT
Last week, we joined "Managing confidential research data," a class on research design and methods at MIT taught by Dr. Micah Altman. We thought SurveyCTO users would appreciate the key take-aways.
Save the date! Dobility India launch parties
We're celebrating the launch of our Dobility India subsidiary and some other cool things we can't talk about quite yet. Please join us for good company, Indian treats, and refreshing local brews on Wednesday, June 1 from 6—8pm at Workbar in Cambridge.
Save the date! Join us at HumTech2016
This year, join SurveyCTO from June 7-9 at HumTech2016, the annual conference that brings "together scientists, engineers, technologists and policymakers from across academic, government, industry and non-government organizations to discuss, share and promote current research and recent accomplishments across all aspects of technology, from science to systems, that have a global humanitarian impact."
SurveyCTO in the U.S.: J-PAL evaluates Nurse-Family Partnership
SurveyCTO has been the data collection tool of choice for J-PAL South Asia for several years now, enabling researchers to collect and analyze quality data on dozens of India-based impact evaluations. Hundreds of other J-PAL and IPA projects have likewise used SurveyCTO in developing countries around the world.