Supervisor tasks

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AriSilva
Posts: 615
Joined: July 22nd, 2016, 3:55 pm

Supervisor tasks

Post by AriSilva »

So far, our strategy of working with CAPI using tablets is having a field structure of 1 coordinator for each big area (in our case a state, which makes 27 state coordinators), then, below them, 1 supervisor for each x interviewers.
These coordinators and supervisors are responsible for many many tasks, but they do not have access to the data collected by the interviewers.
That is, each interviewer connect his/her tablet and send the data directly to the server.
The managerial tema has access only to several reports produced centrally, but not to the data itself, I mean, the csdb file with the microdata.
This is good for some reasons, like security, it is simpler to implement because as soon as the interviewer finishes his field day s/he can send the data immediately, independently of his/her supervisor (the distances sometimes prevent the contact between them) , etc.
But, on the other hand, and this is what is worrying us, the field supervisors and coordinators cannot control the data quality, or have a look at the questionnaires.
How can we give them some controlled access to the microdata, preventing them, for example, to change the contents, but still being able to see what is going on?
Or, in other words, how can we integrate them (coordinators and supervisors) in the managerial tasks after data collection at the lowest level?
Our feeling is that we could do it better, trying to capture problems and systematic errors ASAP.
Best
Ari
htuser
Posts: 638
Joined: December 19th, 2011, 6:26 pm
Location: Silver Spring Area, MD, USA

Re: Supervisor tasks

Post by htuser »

Hi Ari,

The best way is to give field coordinators and supervisors a live copy of questionnaire with obfuscated informations such as the complete examples sent to you via private message.
You can implement them with Templated reports feature or file.write functions. But, you'll have to write html/css (and javascript if you want them in PDF). So, each time enumerators sync, they will also send HTML/PDF copies of questionnaires to theirs field coordinators and supervisors. Using this way, it's difficult even impossible to field coordinators and supervisors to disseminate data while allowing them to see in a very convivial fashion all data from enumerators, this on any support.

Hope this help you.
G.VOLNY, a CSProuser from Haiti, since 2004
AriSilva
Posts: 615
Joined: July 22nd, 2016, 3:55 pm

Re: Supervisor tasks

Post by AriSilva »

That´s interesting, but unfortunately it would involve some extra programming in html, javascript, or whatever.
I would rather prefer staying in the realm of CsPro.
Best
Ari
htuser
Posts: 638
Joined: December 19th, 2011, 6:26 pm
Location: Silver Spring Area, MD, USA

Re: Supervisor tasks

Post by htuser »

I would rather prefer staying in the realm of CsPro
I implemented them in CSPro logic, not outside. I followed an example published by Josh years ago for this: reporting. And Josh helped me a lot.

Best,
G.VOLNY, a CSProuser from Haiti, since 2004
AriSilva
Posts: 615
Joined: July 22nd, 2016, 3:55 pm

Re: Supervisor tasks

Post by AriSilva »

Yeah, but as I understood, you have to design and provide the initial templates using html, isn´t?
Can you send me a snipet example of your cspro code that generates the html?
Best
Ari
AriSilva
Posts: 615
Joined: July 22nd, 2016, 3:55 pm

Re: Supervisor tasks

Post by AriSilva »

In our case the surveys (health surveys) are very huge taking into account the number of questions. For example, the one we are programming right now has 670 plus questions. I´m not sure the the effort of designing (and programming) a questionnaire this big is worth it.
Isn´t there any other way to share the contents with the supervisors?
Best
Ari
josh
Posts: 2401
Joined: May 5th, 2014, 12:49 pm
Location: Washington DC

Re: Supervisor tasks

Post by josh »

I've seen apps where they make a copy of the data file and have the supervisor open it in CSEntry and then delete the copied data file afterwards. That way if the supervisor changes anything, those changes are not saved.

Other users have taken a completely different approach where rather than show the data itself they show summary indicators aggregated for each enumerator. For example, average interview time, average household size, average number of children under 5, average number of children per woman... By comparing these values against what is expected from previous surveys or against the indicators for other interviewers it can help identify interviewers who are not doing a good job.

Another approach is to run quality checks on the data for the household and show that report to the supervisor rather so that they can identify potentially entry errors. These quality checks would be things like values that are in an acceptable range but are still unlikely (e.g. 15 year old who has complete secondary school). They might be non-blocking warnings in the data entry application.
AriSilva
Posts: 615
Joined: July 22nd, 2016, 3:55 pm

Re: Supervisor tasks

Post by AriSilva »

Thanks, Josh for mentioning these alternatives.
We are already using the second (summary indicators and averages) and the third (quality checks) alternatives. These are what we call “aggregated data” controls, calculated centrally and sent to the coordinators/supervisors with a predetermined frequency.
We are doing also some specific checks on paradata variables, such as GPS, to see if they are inbound the sector track.
The first alternative you mentioned, if I understood it, is to send the complete file (or the portion of the file that corresponds to the supervisor), maybe reformatting the dictionary to have a subset of the data. And give them a csentry program to read the file. The thing I did not understand was the last part to delete the file. For security purposes? But what happens if the supervisors are a little “intelligent” and cancel the program in the middle of it: he will have access to the csdb file, and that is what we do not like, even if it is a small subset.
Best
Ari
josh
Posts: 2401
Joined: May 5th, 2014, 12:49 pm
Location: Washington DC

Re: Supervisor tasks

Post by josh »

Deleting it isn't intended as a security measure. It is just that in the cases where I have seen this is that supervisor review should really be a read-only operation to avoid sync issues if both interviewer and supervisor edit the data at the same time. Since CSPro doesn't have a read-only mode in order to avoid saving any inadvertent changes to csdb file you make a copy and run the data entry program on that copy instead of on the original file. As long the copy of the file is never synced to the server it doesn't really matter if it sticks around if a supervisor cancels in the middle.
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