Head to head Paper vs. Digital

The boom in information technology has inspired the household survey data collection to go digital.

In September 2011, SSD staff members Orlee Velarde and Dehner de Leon assessed

the viability of using various devices (Android and iOS tablets) and Web-based

applications (Google Forms and Survey Monkey) in conducting the digital household

survey.

Orlee started developing the Esurvey database with the use of MS Access-based

application and it took him about a month inclusion of testing and inputs of the

variables needed. Mr. Velarde installed a redistributable plug-in thru Access Runtime

(http://msdn.microsoft.com/enus/office/bb229700). For each tablet without the need to install

the Proprietary MS Office application. This means that purchasing additional

commercial software won't be necessary to serve the purpose of these tablets. As

for the training of the Enumerators (Joel Reano and Rose San Valentin) it took only a

day or 2 to understand the use of the Esurvey tablet.

Trial of E-survey tablet

The E-survey tablet was first tested on November 27, 2011 under

the Central Luzon loop survey project. A 23 page questionnaire

targeting 108 respondents was tailored fit to 2 tablets. It took the

research team 3 weeks to gather a total of 81 sampling with

minimum error. Ready to export and integrate to SSD’s statistical

analysis software such SPSS and STATA.

An IRRI SSD staff doing his survey with the use of tablet

Benefits

The great advantage of implementing

the tablet was the cost. Having your

typical questionnaire would involve

additional manpower, shipping, storage,

print, and admin costs. Unlike the

tablet, the only cost would be

preventive maintenance.2 Enumerators

doing the

traditional

paper survey

Benefit - Cost AnalysisBenefit - Cost Analysis

Traditional datasets consume a lot of office space

and data archives since the 60’s

Traditional datasets consume a lot of office space

and data archives since the 60’s

Added BenefitsAdded Benefits

Other added benefits are the enthusiastic participation of the farmers. “It was a very exciting experience” said one researcher.

“Farmers usually frown when they see an researcher carrying thick questionnaires, but using a tablet PC, an interview becomes

amusing both for the farmer and the enumerator as well”.

Some minor constraints for the use of tablet are power consumption (needs charging every

6hours), the visibility of the tablet on brightly lit areas is affected, and risk of loss.

So far 3 projects are underway with the use of the Esurvey tablet. Dr. Kei Kajia’s have ordered 4

new tablets to apply to their project and Dr. Takashi Yamano under the STRASA project based

in IRRI India will be trying surveybe. Some other teams will be adapting to it as well with the

use of CS Pro - a freeware that can be downloaded from US Census website. SSD’s RDM team

would try to use other functions such as GPS and direct to cloud repository. They are also

eyeing on other tablet devices such as ipad, galaxy tab and understand it’s database

functionality and development.

Constraints

Implementation and Future Use

Pie Moya, senior research manager at IRRI's Social Sciences Division, led the use of digital technology in

conducting the surveys to collect household data, resulting in huge savings on cost of printing,

encoding, and handling of questionnaires—not to mention trees.

Household survey goes Green

Below is a sample cost analysis of the Traditional Questionnaire vs. Tablet

Development

With the use of the tablet, the encoding process was excluded giving the research team more time to allocate in data analysis rather

than rekeying the data sets gathered using the traditional printed sampling. Quality of data is more reliable since the inputs are

direct from the household. The occasional error in encoding will now be a thing of the past.

IRRI SSD Research Database

Management team

together with it’s collaborating team

EfficiencyEfficiency