You are currently viewing Safer data collection for peacebuilding and development

At a time when data is needed more than ever to inform policy and programs that keep people safe, the COVID-19 pandemic has made data collection more challenging. How can peacebuilding organizations and technology innovators work together to deploy safer means of data collection and sustain high-impact projects?

The campaign for Digital Adaptation & Technological Innovation in Peacebuilding, launched by DME for Peace, an NGO that provides professionals in the peacebuilding, development, and humanitarian sectors a platform to share tools, methodologies, and findings, is focusing on this urgent need to reshape practices and programming. In the campaign’s upcoming webinar on August 6, 2020 at 10:00 AM EDT, Dobility, the makers of SurveyCTO, will share how technology can be used to support safer data collection across in-person and remote methods that protect project staff and beneficiaries.

Amrik Cooper, Director of Dobility’s expert customer success team, will lead a 20-minute presentation, followed by a question & answer session moderated by DME for Peace. If you miss the live webinar, you can watch the recording that will be posted here.

What you’ll learn

In this webinar, you’ll learn about safer methods of in-person data collection, alternative remote methods, and innovative ways of ensuring data quality, including the following:  

  • Decentralizing data collection: While lockdowns have forced projects to adapt, traditional in-person operations can be decentralized to reduce the need for travel and face-to-face interactions. These approaches include remote onboarding, training, and supervising of enumerators, and can also be applied to remote data collection methods, such as phone surveys, web surveys, and SMS surveys.
  • Phone surveying: Phone surveys, also known as computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), offer interviewer-mediated research, where enumerators play a critical role in ensuring respondent survey comprehension and completion. Tools for phone surveys organize the process of capturing respondent phone numbers, scheduling calls, and recording contact attempt details. More advanced tools allow users to record calls, customize forms and functionalities, and request consent.
  • Ensuring data quality: Innovative ways for collecting high-quality data include remote enumerator training and monitoring and automated quality checks. Field plug-ins can also be used to incorporate training videos into forms and integrate with external cloud telephony platforms to record phone surveys.

The webinar will offer guidance on how mobile data collection platforms can be used for these approaches. Read this overview for more information on decentralizing data collection operations.  

How to attend?

The webinar will be held on August 6, 2020 at 10:00 AM EDT. Register today to attend! The recording of the webinar will be posted here.

If you’re a SurveyCTO user and need help now, our support team is available 24×7. Go to the Support Center and click on the link to “Submit a support request.” No question is too small. 

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Chris Robert

Founder

Chris is the founder of SurveyCTO. He now serves as Director and Founder Emeritus, supporting Dobility in a variety of part-time capacities. Over the course of Dobility’s first 10 years, he held several positions, including CEO, CTO, and Head of Product.

Before founding Dobility, he was involved in a long-term project to evaluate the impacts of microfinance in South India; developed online curriculum for a program to promote the use of evidence in policy-making in Pakistan and India; and taught statistics and policy analysis at the Harvard Kennedy School. Before that, he co-founded and helped grow an internet technology consultancy and led technology efforts for the top provider of software and hardware for multi-user bulletin board systems (the online systems most prominent before the Internet).