3. Enumeration Instruments, Applications and Tools
Recommendations
Based on country experiences, the following recommendations are based for development of digital census tools:
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Ensure that there is an app help function installed on the tablet especially for questions and variables that are harder for enumerators to remember, this allows for a quick reference point.
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Benchmarking with countries that had already undertaken a census using handheld devices was key. Input from other countries largely assisted the finalisation of the tools and instruments.
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Questionnaires should be finalised and tested before the training of field personnel starts. This is to guard against having questions in the data collection application that have not been tested. The questionnaire must not be too long, and the questions must be clear.
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The success of the implementation of a paperless census was attributed to numerous pretests, office testing and the pilot census. In addition, the enumerators need to be comfortable with the devices, therefore having dedicated days for field practice using the devices is important. This ensures that enumerators and their supervisors can go through different scenarios but also familiarise themselves with the data collection application.
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Version control, you need to have one version of the software. When multiple people are working on the application, you need to have a central repository where changes are made to the system such as GitHub. Otherwise, if one software developer maintains the versions, multiple versions of the application may arise and cause confusion. In addition, an inventory of all forms should be kept as this is necessary for future reference and improvement.