EpiSurveyor Manual

Revised June 1st, 2005

Contents

What is EpiSurveyor?

Terminology

Installation

Before installing EpiSurveyor

Java Runtime Environment (JRE)

Data Safety

Files

Sharing Your Forms and Data

Creating a Survey and Publishing it to your PDA

Time, Date, and Username Stamping

Question Types

Other Question Options

Transferring Data Back to the Desktop from the PDA

Multiple Users

Power

Troubleshooting

Support

Funding

IMPORTANT:

For general information about hotsyncing and other Palm topics see the Support

materials (including the user manual for your PDA model) at

What is EpiSurveyor?

EpiSurveyor is a collection of software tools designed to make it easier to collect public health and other data using handheld computers. The benefits of using handhelds for this purpose is well-documented, but up to now the software required to create handheld forms has been expensive and/or complex. EpiSurveyor is designed to provide sophisticated functionality to the average user with little or no training.

EpiSurveyor is an open-source software project, and is provided at no cost in the hope of benefiting the worldwide public health community.

Terminology

  • The terms “handheld”, “Palm”, and “PDA” are used interchangeably to refer to the Palm OS (Palm Operating System) handheld computer you will use to collect data.
  • The terms “desktop”, and “laptop” all refer to the Windows computer that you use to design your surveys and to view the data.
  • The terms “survey” and “form” are used interchangeably.
  • The terms “hotsync”, “synchronize”, and “sync” are used interchangeably, and all mean to connect your handheld to the desktop and exchange information.
  • The desktop component of EpiSurveyor is called the “Survey Designer” or just “EpiSurveyor” if in the desktop context.
  • The handheld component of EpiSurveyor is called the “Survey Engine” or just “EpiSurveyor” if in the handheld context.

Installation

Before installing EpiSurveyor

  1. You should have installed the Palm Desktop software located on the CD that came with your PDA. If you do not have the CD, you can download Palm Desktop at in the Support section of the website.
  2. You should have uccessfully hotsync’d your PDA at least one time, which will allow you to create a unique username for that handheld.
  3. You should know which version of the Palm OS is running on your handheld computer. To find this out, turn on your handheld and click the home icon. Then click the menu icon and choose Info. In the Info screen, click the Version button, and it will tell you the OS version. For example, it may say “Palm OS® software v. 5.2.8” which means that you are running version 5. During the install, the installer will ask which version of the Survey Engine you want to install, and you should choose the version compatible with the Palm OS on your handheld.

Java Runtime Environment (JRE)

This is software that helps the Survey Designer to work properly. You must have a compatible JRE installed on your computer. If you do not have a compatible JRE installed, the installer program will stop the install, tell you this, and offer to download it from the internet. Obviously, if you are not connected to the internet, this will not work, and you will need to wait until you are connected to the internet (if you received EpiSurveyor on a CD, it will contain the installation program for a compatible version of JRE so you will not need to connect to the internet).

Data Safety

  • If the PDA’s battery is allowed to drain completely it can lose any data entered since the last hotsync (this depends on the model; check your model’s user manual).
  • Therefore, you should hotsync as soon as possible after entering new data, to save a copy of the data on the desktop.
  • A copy of collected data remains on the handheld until you choose to “Clear Data” in the opening screen of the Survey Engine on the handheld. Do not clear data from the handheld until you have hotsync’d the data to the desktop

Files

  • The default location for all EpiSurveyor files is \My Documents\My Surveys\
  • A survey named “Nairobi” will have the following file types:
  • After creating survey on desktop and clicking “Save” button:

Nairobi.svythe desktop file containing the survey design specifications

Nairobi.optan additional file containing design options for your survey

(this is not always created)

  • After clicking “Publish” button

Nairobi.pdbthe first of two PDA files containing the survey design specs

Nairobi_info.pdbthe second PDA file containing the survey design specs

These two files (above) must be transferred to the PDA in order to use the Nairobi survey. For information on how to transfer files to your PDA see the user manual for your PDA model at

  • After collecting data, hotsyncing, and clicking “View Data” button

Nairobi.csva comma-separated text file that can be opened for analysis

The first field in the .csv file will be the Palm username of the PDA that gathered that record.

The second field in the .csv file will be the date/time stamp which is created when each record is created (i.e., when the data was entered)

The first row in the .csv file will be the column names, indicating which question is in that column.

Sharing Your Forms and Data

  • If you want to send someone a survey form so they can enter data but can’t change the form design: send the two .pdb files
  • If you want to send someone a survey form so they can change the form design, send them the .svy file (and, if it exists, the .opt file)
  • If you want to send someone the data, send them the .csv file

Creating a Survey and Publishing it to your PDA

  1. Run the EpiSurveyor program on your Windows computer (not the EpiSurveyorSetup.exe installer program). There should be a shortcut on your desktop labeled “DataDyne EpiSurveyor”.
  2. Add the questions you want
  3. Add the skip patterns, if any
  4. Click the Save button to SAVE the survey file
  5. Click the Publish button
  6. Go to the Windows desktop and open the My Surveys folder
  7. Double-click on BOTH .pdb files for your survey to add them to the hotsync queue
  8. Hotsync your PDA

Time, Date, and Username Stamping

Note that for each data record (each row in the .csv file) the first field will indicate the Palm username of the handheld that was used to create that record. The second field will indicate the time and date each record was created (i.e., when each survey form was started on the handheld). This means you do not need to include a field in your surveys such as “What is today’s date?” since that information is recorded automatically.

Question Types

EpiSurveyor allows you to create 3 basic question types:

  1. Multiple choice questions – this will probably be the question type you use most frequently, as it forces the respondent to choose from a limited set of responses. Some examples of multiple choice questions:

Has your child been immunized against measles? Yes / No

Why have you not taken the child to the doctor? Lack of transport / Financial Reason / Other

What province is this respondent from? Kilifi / Malindi / Coast / Other

EpiSurveyor allows you to present multiple choice questions in two “Option Styles”: Dropdown List or Radio Buttons. An example of each is below:

Figure 1: Example of radio buttons

Figure 2: Example of dropdown list, or menu

Generally, if there are few options it is better to use Radio Buttons because it minimizes the amount of clicking the user will need to do, but if there are more options than can fit on one screen you will need to choose Dropdown List. Note that both the Dropdown List or the Radio Buttons allow the user to choose only one of the options.

  1. Free input questions – free input questions are used when you do not want to limit the response. Free input can be either alpha text (i.e., letters), or else numeric. When you choose the alpha text type, the PDA user will need to enter the free text either by using the Graffiti handwriting recognition system (see your Palm user manual) or else by pulling up an onscreen keyboard. Either way, it is cumbersome to enter large amounts of text. For this reason, and because of the difficulties in analyzing free text answers, it is strongly suggested that you strictly limit your use of alpha text free input questions.

Numeric free input questions are much easier, and will automatically display a numeric keypad for the user to tap in the appropriate numeric response.

  1. Date questions – self-explanatory.

Other Question Options

  1. Required Questions

Every question offers a checkbox allowing you to make that question a required one. If you check this box, the PDA user will not be able to advance to the next question until they enter a response.

  1. How you want the Data Saved (multiple choice questions only)

For multiple choice questions, you can choose for the responses to be saved as numeric values or as the actual option text. For example, for the following question

What province is this?Kilifi / Malindi / Coast / Other

if you choose “Index of selected option (numeric)” in the Survey Designer a response of Kilifi will appear in the data file as 1, while Malindi will be 2, etc.

If you choose “Option text” in the Survey Designer a response of Kilifi will appear in the data file as “Kilifi”, and so on.

  1. Potential Responses (multiple choice questions only)

As their name would suggest, multiple choice questions require you to provide the respondent with multiple choices for their response. The Potential Responses box is where you type the choices, with one per line.

Note that you can save response sets and later load them again. This is useful when you have a list of responses that is too long to keep re-typing each time you want to use it (for example, a list of the months of the year, or a list of the districts in a province). You can type the list once, and then click “Save Response Set”. Later, when you want to use it again, click “Load Response Set”.

  1. Autofill (free input questions only)

Autofill will fill a particular free input question with whatever the previous respondent’s answer was. This is useful, for example, if you will be visiting several villages in a day but you don’t know the names of the villages. After the first respondent says their village name, that name will be automatically inserted in each new record until you change it (when you go to the next village). Then the new village name will continue until you change that.

Note: if you already know the possible responses to a question, you should use a multiple choice question, not a free input question.

  1. Skip Logic (multiple choice questions only)

Skip logic (also called logical branching) allows you to bypass a group of questions depending on the answer to a previous question. For example, if you have a question

Do you smoke? Yes / No

followed by a series of questions that only apply to smokers, you can instruct the Survey Designer to skip all the smoking-related questions if the response to the question is “No”.

  1. Set and Last date options (appear on the PDA only, only for date questions)

When you go to answer a date question on the PDA, you will see two buttons: Set and Last. The set button brings up a calendar that allows you to choose the correct date. You can scroll forward and back through years or months, or automatically choose the current date (which is the default). The Last button will look back through the current form and duplicate the last date entered. This is useful when, for example, you are asking “Measles vaccination date”, “Polio vaccination date”, etc. If the child received all those vaccinations on the same date, after you enter one you can just click Last for all the subsequent date questions and it will put in the same date as the first.

Transferring Data Back to the Desktop from the PDA

  1. Hotsync your PDA
  2. Go into EpiSurveyor on your Windows computer
  3. Click the View Data button
  4. Select the form for which you want to view data
  5. The program will create (or update) the .csv file in My Surveys.
  6. You can now open the .csv file in Excel or another program and view the data

Multiple Users

Often many people want to collect data with the same form on multiple PDAs and then merge the data together. EpiSurveyor can easily do this if you follow the following steps:

  1. Hotsync each PDA that will be using the survey to the desktop computer that will hold the data file BEFORE queueing the .pdb files to the PDAs. This is necessary so that the desktop will create a queue for each of the PDAs.
  2. Create the survey form and publish it.
  3. Queue the .pdb files for each PDA username that will be using the form (see Palm user manual at for more info on transferring files to your PDA).
  4. Sync each of the PDAs (this will transfer the survey to them).
  5. After data collection, sync each of the PDAs again (this will transfer the data back to the desktop).
  6. On the desktop, in EpiSurveyor, click the View Data button to create (or update) the .csv file for your survey.
  7. Open the .csv file. Each user’s data will be there, indicated by the first field, which is the Palm username.

Power

  • You can increase battery life by decreasing the screen brightness.

Troubleshooting

  • I have entered data but it is not showing up in the .csv file
  • Make sure you have followed all steps outlined above (people sometimes forget to hotsync after entering data.
  • I have put the .pdb files into the queue, and hotsync’d, but the survey is not showing up on my PDA.
  • When you put them in the queue, make sure they are in the queue for your Palm username: if more than one handheld hotsyncs to that desktop computer you may have put it in someone else’s queue.
  • How do I find out my Palm username?
  • On the handheld, go to home and find the color Hotsync icon and click it (on the Zire 31, do not click the black and white hotsync icon at the bottom of your screen: that will just start a hotsync).
  • In the upper righthand corner of the screen, it will indicate your Palm username

Support

Support for EpiSurveyor is currently limited, but we will try our best to respond to all emails. Before writing with a question, please remember:

  1. For all issues related to your computer hardware, the hotsyncing process, using Palm Desktop, and any software other than EpiSurveyor, please check the support materials at in the Support section of the website. For example, support for the Zire 31 can be found at
  1. For issues related to EpiSurveyor, please read this entire document carefully to see if your question is already answered.

If you do contact us for support, please provide the hardware model, the EpiSurveyor version (choose About under the Help menu in Survey Designer to find out what version you have), and the specific details of your problem. The more specific you are, the better the chance that we can help you solve your problem!

For support, or to suggest improvements or report bugs,

please email:

Funding

Funding for development of EpiSurveyor has been provided by the World Bank’s infoDev, by the UN Foundation, and by Dr. Joel Selanikio. If you are interested in helping to fund further development or enhancements to the program, please contact Dr. Selanikio at

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