Easy Guide To Mobile Data Collection

Collecting data using smartphones has many advantages in terms of ease of use and cost reduction, especially over the paper based method of data collection:

• they are available in sparsely populated areas, which mean that the act of collecting data can be, if needed, crowdsourced by people living on the field;
• they often carry at least a basic camera and sound recorder, which allows for multiple forms of data collection;
• the results of the data collection can be sent in real time if an internet connection is available.

However there are common pitfalls that can make it much costlier, longer and much harder if not done properly. The goal of this guide is to provide you clear guidelines in a compact format.

To help you understand the various questions and tasks that need to be addressed before, during and after the process of collecting data, we split them up across the four key roles that need to be part of your team.