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My experience with new technology: Household survey for FATE-Laos Team

By Maliphone Douangphachanh

Using tablet for household survey is a challenge for some of our country teams, especially for the Lao team where using table for household survey is a new technique. Dr. Saithong Phommavong is the main person who has a vision for capacity building for both National University of Laos and FATE project in the future. He fully encouraged creating xlsform for electronic survey by using tablet. At the beginning, Dr. Saithong Phommavong and I had meeting and discussed about survey with Dr. Micheal Epprecht and Mr. Souphaphone Phathitmyxay since they already had done many surveys by using tablets (ODK app).  Souphaphone is a database & GIS specialist of CDE. He gave a brief overview of using tablets for household surveys. I found that it is not easy to do so. This task really needs a person in charge to create and edit form through questionnaire all the time.  The xlsform needs to be tested many times until it can work properly.  

    

The enumerators at Vienkeo Village during tablets testing

The big support came from CDE office especially Dr. Michael Epprecht who allowed Mr. Souphaphone Phathitmyxay to help me. Whenever I had questions regarding xlsform, he was pleased to help. It was a very good start for Lao team that Maurice already created the basis of the xlsform for FATE-project. At first, I had to explore how to create an xlsform. I learned from internet by myself via YouTube and asked Google what I did not know. I also followed the links on how to create xlsform that Mr. Maurice Tschopp who is PhD candidate of FATE project shared  and  links of survey CTO information and FAQ (http://www.surveycto.com/about.html, coding: General information on survey on xls forms:  Instructions, software and training manuals for xls forms: https://opendatakit.org/use/xlsform/ , and Examples of xls forms/ODK programing: https://opendatakit.org/help/form-design/examples/). This was a great opportunity for me to learn a very new project. I spent a lot of time learning by doing the coding of xlsform for survey CTO. I worked on it about three weeks (testing and editing xlsform). I stayed up late almost every day during these time. Eventually, I was able to created xlsform for Survey CTO. I feel very happy of this success even if it was not fully perfect.

Enumerator under training in using tablet 

After the creation of the xlsform, the next step was training for enumerators. The enumerators were lecturers and MA students from the faculty of Social Sciences, National University of Laos. They followed three trainings. Before the first training, I distributed questionnaire to them to read and tablets to try on.  For the first training, the enumerators were given an overview of software by Mr. Souphaphone Phathitmyxay.  Then, they practiced using tablet in the fieldwork at Viengkeo village nearby the National University of Laos. In order to check the questionnaire on the tablets, enumerators were divided in pairs, one enumerator used tablet and another one used the questionnaire printed. They highlighted the errors. After complete testing tablet, they gave feedback on the questionnaire printed. The xlsform was updated again regarding the errors after this practice. Lastly, they were trained to confirm with using tablet as well as familiar with questionnaire on tablet. 

Group Discussion after testing tablet   

Advocacy event promoting women and economy in Rwanda

By Christine Bigler

How useful a good relationship with researcher partners can be, is proved by the following incident. So I’ve got the call for a Business Award for Women from the Chamber of Women Entrepreneurs in Rwanda. This governmental lead organization to promote the private sector in Rwanda have organised together with UN Women and the German Society for International Cooperation an event to promoting women’s economic participation in the country. During the event different prices for women-led, innovative business models are awarded.  Among other things specific trainings or technical equipment such as laptops included to major gains.

Coincidentally I had during the qualitative survey an interview with a leader of an agricultural Cooperative, MUKESHIMANA Chantal, which started such a business in the Northern Province by means of a value-added processing (washing and packing) of Irish potatoes and asked her to apply for this contest.  We already introduced Chantal MUKESHIMANA in the FATE blog in August 2015. With support from FATE research team, we put together in a very short time a proposal and she was invited to this event.

Unfortunately she was not able to get any of the main awards. The event have offered her the opportunity to make many new contacts, participate in interesting discussions on the promotion of women in business and finally she has even decided to apply for membership of the Chamber of Women Entrepreneurs in Rwanda to improve access to obtain information and to be able to be part of a larger network of women working in business and entrepreneurship.

A nice little example of how our research can sometimes promote unexpected results to light.

See also the article in the local newspaper: 

 http://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/Printer/2015-11-11/194276/

Christine Bigler (from the FATE project) and Chantal Mukeshimana