Executive Summary
In the two weeks time frame several important tasks were undertaken. The input started with some planning detailed in chapter 3 and meeting the local SIEMIS team, both important steps to foster improved on-going collaboration between various people involved in different roles. The remaining activities that took place are closely inline with the Terms of Reference (TOR) for this short input and can be summarized as follows:
- Several high priority software developments tasks (e.g. new features, fixes, chores) where completed;
- Informal short trainings were conducted;
- PDF eSurvey was the biggest part of this work including the introduction of the tool used to create the PDF eSurvey, the actual creation of a pilot draft PDF eSurvey, the piloting of the process to fill up the PDF eSurvey with data and upload into a test database using the PDF eSurvey Manager standalone application, documentation of related tools and processes and training;
- A new textbook feature has been developed, tested and pushed into production, and;
- Ideas of how to integrate RapidPro SMS were investigated.
Core Activities Summary
One of the main goal was to meet with other team members working on this project to further improve collaboration. The local staff composed of the IT support officer and data entry officer along with three international consultant were among those present. Here's how my activities were planned over the short 2 weeks input.
The core activities were training and further development of the new eSurvey technology met to be used to collect a vast amount of data for the calculation of national education key indicators and monitoring and evaluation of other educational resources (e.g. equipment at schools, textbooks). While the Solomon Islands already have the means and processes in place to collect such data it remained a pain staking process for data entry officer. Until now they would collect those paper-based surveys and manually input data for the 900+ schools in the country by hand into the EMIS. The new technology was to improve this process by enabling electronically fillable PDF eSurveys and also a direct access online to the EMIS through a new UI component. Below two illustrations show the new online form for direct data entry by schools,
and also the PDF cover of the surveys for schools without Internet connection but access to a computer or tablet with Adobe Reader installed.
Considering the number of tasks do do in a short amount of time only informal training was conducted throughout the 2 weeks in country. While this was likely sufficient to understand some simple new processes such as the PDF eSurvey for example, it would not be adequate for more involved participation into the project which is an important aspect to foster project ownership by local adopting countries. While Brian and Frank will report on the training they conducted here is a list of items I did with the data entry officers (i.e. Sophie, Anita) and/or IT Officer (i.e. John):
- General process of data submission (old paper based and manual data entry vs. new technologies of online submission and PDF eSurvey)
- PDF eSurvey creation technology CenoPDF a proprietary plug-in for Microsoft Word
- The PDF eSurvey Manager desktop tool to upload data from PDF into the database
- SQL and Microsoft SQL Server
- The various modules found (and planned) in the online Pacific EMIS (e.g. managing schools online, managing surveys online)
