Open Data kit Training

Shahzad Asghar

ODK Experts

Setup Mobile Data collection within 30 Minutes

(Free consultancy and training for NGO/INGOs)

Please contact

Shahzad.cdcu@gmail.com

Data Collection with Mobile phone

ODK is freely available toolkit that you can use for mobile data collection.

XFroms

XForms is an XML format used for collecting inputs from web forms. XForms was designed to be the next generation of HTML / XHTML forms, but is generic enough that it can also be

used in a standalone manner or with presentation languages other than XHTML to describe a user interface and a set of common data manipulation tasks.

XRX application architecture

Because XForms makes it easy to edit complex XML data there are many advantages to using XForms with native XML databases that frequently leverage REST interfaces. The combination of three technologies (XForms on the client, REST interfaces and XQuery on the server) is

collectively known as XRX application development. XRX is known for its simple architecture that uses XML both on the client and in the database and avoids the transformations to object or relational data structures.

Benefits

XForms provides specific benefits when used on mobile devices:

User interfaces using XForms require fewer round trips with the server and are in that sense more self-contained than user interfaces using HTML 4 forms.

Capabilities of mobile devices vary greatly; consequently the amount of the work involved in generating different user interfaces for different devices is of particular concern in the mobile world. XForms has been designed from the ground up to allow forms to be described independently of the device, which reduces the amount of work required to target multiple devices.

XForms reduces the need for JavaScript, which is particularly interesting as JavaScript support varies greatly on mobile devices and cannot be widely relied upon. This also allows systems on which JavaScript is disabled for security concerns to continue to operate flawlessly.

Implementations

Xfolite

Xfolite is a light-weight XForms client for the J2ME platform. It was originally created at Nokia Research Center, and it includes a DOM and XPath 1.0 implementation as well as an XForms engine that implements the XForms 1.1 specification almost completely. XFolite is currently in beta and should not be considered ready for production use. The first real world implementation has been in the Nokia Data Gathering mobile client . XML Schemas and CSS are outside project scope, however. Xfolite is open source and licensed under the LGPL license.

JavaRosa

JavaRosa is an XForms client written in Java Mobile Edition (J2ME), and supports a wide array of devices, from top-end smart phones and PDAs with large screens and abundant memory, to low-end devices like the Nokia 6085 and 2630. Making JavaRosa usable on low-resource devices is one of the project's highest priorities. JavaRosa 1.0 Alpha was released in September 2010.

ODKCollect

ODKCollect is part of the Open Data Kit, and is an XForms client for Android devices. The client displays XForm in sequential order obeying form logic, entry constraints, and repeating sub-structures. Users work through the prompts and save the submission as completed or partially completed (allowing later revision), and can record pictures as well as their location using the phone's built-in camera and GPS device, respectively.

Group Complete

Group Complete is a mobile data collection system that includes Group Complete Mobile (GC Mobile), an XForms client for Android devices. GC Mobile provides an interface to create XForms on the mobile device as well as XForms data entry with capabilities similar to ODKCollect. Forms and data are stored in CouchDB databases allowing mobile workers to make changes to forms and data while offline, collaborate on data entry and share collected data with team members and backoffice data consumers in real-time. Group Complete is compatible with all major ODK systems.