Formhub with Democracy International's Michael Baldassaro (with hints at ona.io)

Continuing with my work on Mobiles for development as a student of the TechChange Institute, this week I had the pleasure of learning from Michael Baldassaro, Innovation Director of Democracy International.

Who? 

Michael Baldassaro (who by chance has a Masters from the same school where I did one of my Masters) is @MBaldassaro on Twitter. He has a history of working for non-profit organisations that seek to promote democracy.

Michael now works for Democracy International (@DemocracyIntl), a non-partisan USA-based NGO with offices located in 70 countries.

Background on case study presented

Democracy  International (DI) was hired by the Egyptian High Election Committee to monitor the January 2014 Constitutional Referendum vote. For the Egyptian Constitutional Referendum, more than 20 million Egyptians visited polling stations across the country on the 14th and 15th of January to vote on (and overwhelmingly approve) a new Constitution. (Caveat - Estimated voter turnout was 38.6 percent.)

What?

DI uses its own open-source, cloud-based (so yes, you need a feature phone and access to wifi at some point to submit your data) survey-style platform called formhub.

A developer from DI is working on a feature-free mobile version of this called ona.io. Ona.io will turn the feature-phone survey into a text-based survey that can collect and collate data via SMS ("like Geopoll", Michael explained.)

When observing the January vote in Egypt, DI simply purchased Google Nexus tablets and pre-paid sim cards for all election observers. The survey form was downloaded onto each tablet and filled in offline, and then observers needed only to find a hot spot to submit the complete forms.

How? 

In place of old-fashioned paper surveys, DI's formhub uses technology to collect, collate, and display data online. This means data is collected and analysed faster with less room for human error. The data is also stored in the cloud - that means data is not hosted locally, where local agitators might be able to access and destroy or alter it. (Michael alluded to local election observer organisations who experienced police raids that destroyed their servers - and all their data.)

The observation of elections in Egypt took place in five steps:

1. Create the observation form (the survey) using XLSForm. There are several online videos about how to do this - I found a pretty extensive 'how to' here. The purpose of using XLSForm to create a survey is that formhub can then build a user-friendly survey form that 'responds' to user answers - that is, the form ensures the user fills in 'required' sections and that certain follow-up questions appear only when the user gives a specific response, e.g. if a user notes that there are parties campaigning at a polling station, the form will present a drop-down box asking 'which parties?' 
2. Upload the form to the cloud via formhub. 
3. Download the form to specific tablets or smart phones.* Forms can be downloaded via clicking a link or scanning a QR code. Michael led a real-time demonstration, and there were some tech issues with iPhones. 
4. Fill out the forms.
5. Upload the completed forms to the cloud. 

*Michael did note that DI spent two days training election observers on the tech (the tablets and the online forms) and the environment in which the observers expected to use the tech. He emphasised the need for tech to be fit for purpose, reliable, familiar, and user-friendly to be effective. 

Data can be viewed immediately via a map of where what type of information was collected (with geo-located clickable bubbles allowing you to access specific forms or view particular responses). Data can also be downloaded in Excel or CSV, or shared with other sites via an API (application interface).

Some images are below:

The formhub admin interface (above.)

The map visualisation of the geo-located data. Click a dot to see the form from a specific polling station.

The form you see when you click a dot.

Filter the data for specific questions. 

View responses to specific questions (overview in the corner.)

A sample survey form (what the survey looks like to a user filling it out.)

How a person filling out the survey can geolocate themselves.

How you build the survey (in XLSForm): above are the questions (with constraints, hints, etc.)

How you build the survey (in XLSForm): above are the answers. 

Lessons learned:

Once again, it's great to have these classes with actual practitioners who bring their on-the-ground experience and lessons learned to the table. Michael had the following to say: 

• On managing the organisational change required when it comes to tech-enabled projects:
• Act like a doctor. Treat the patient, not the symptom. Focus on the outcome - a healthier patient, not a fancy gadget or tech-enabled test. Don't feel the need to use technology if it is not necessary. 
• On open-source:
• Don't confuse how the application is built with where the data is kept. If you use open-source to build the data-collection application but you store the data itself on a secure server, you shouldn't have security problems whether your application is built via open-source or not. 
• On formhub:
• Tell your users not to forget to submit the form.