Introduction
After weeks of preparation, data collection is where your research instrument finally meets your respondents. KoboCollect makes this easier: you can fill in forms on an Android phone, save your progress, and send responses straight to KoboToolbox. In this tutorial, you will learn how to download your form, start a new form for each respondent, and complete the questions. I also explain the difference between saving a draft and finalising a submission. Finally, you will see where to find submitted data in KoboToolbox.
Steps involved in data collection using KoboCollect
The first step is to open the Kobo Collect app on your Android mobile phone.
On the home interface, click download form.
This will display the list of all deployed forms shared with you.
Select the form that you would like to use to collect data by clicking on the check box next to the form.
Next, click get selected at the bottom of the page.
These actions will download the form into your Kobo Collect account.
The next step is to start a new form. You must start a new form every time you want to administer the questionnaire to a different respondent.
Collect data.
The next step is to either save as a draft or finalise the form.
Save as a draft if you need to make some changes to the form or if you want to crosscheck the form before submitting it.
Finalize the form if you are ready to submit.
If you finalise the form and there are errors that need to be corrected, Kobo Collect will display the errors. In the image below, some mandatory questions were not answered, Kobo Collect did not submit the form, and instead displayed the errors.
Once you finalise the form and the form is filled as per the settings, the form will be submitted to and stored in Kobo Toolbox, where the owner can view and access the data collected.
To access the data, you (the owner) must log in to Kobo Toolbox
From the list of projects, select the project for which you want to view or edit the data
From the menu, click on data
This will display all the data submitted from the form through Kobo Collect.
Important points to note when collecting data with KoboCollect
- Always carry out quality checks of the data submitted on a regular basis. Do not wait until the data collection process is over, as this may take weeks or months, and it will be difficult to address any quality issues that may arise in the field.
- Edit the data in KoboToolbox before exporting to other platforms for data analysis. This will ensure that you have a clean dataset to work with from the outset.
Conclusion
You now know how to collect, save, and submit data with KoboCollect. If a submission fails, check for unanswered required questions, because the app will not submit a form until they are answered. Check your submitted data regularly during fieldwork so that you catch errors while you can still fix them. Do the basic cleaning in KoboToolbox before you export anything for analysis. In the next tutorial, we will look at the KoboCollect settings that help your fieldwork run smoothly.
Other tutorials in the series
KoboCollect Settings: How to Configure the App for Fieldwork (KoboToolbox Tutorial #8)
Data Management in KoboToolbox: Reports, Validation & Export (KoboToolbox Tutorial #9)