RapidSMS: What do we want to measure?

Most important question: what should we measure?

Useful google group sharing studies and providing hard data on effectiveness: ICT4CHW@googlegroups.com

Examples

Egypt: problem of high drop out rates in schools due to child labor in agriculture. Rather than having information after a year, have to know it daily/weekly to react. Focusing now on result based prototype.

Send message with following information: 30 M4 F8 (Student attendance total, break down by sex how many missing)

Malawi: UNICEF is running similar project:

·         Attendance of students:  total, male/female

·         Teachers’ attendance

·         Water supply working Y/N

Minimum requirement: cell tower location

Rapid sms really useful for UNICEF since works with simple, inexpensive phones

Malawi:

Have children help line, children call call-centre,

Have community victim support, police, and child protection workers and RapidSMS could be used to coordinate response between them:

·         Question how they could send information to the government via sms, e.g. incidence of a child rape could also be sent to call centre, they could get in touch with child protecting worker and send police to investigate

·         At the moment there is no connection between the call centre and the child protection worker

·         2 NGOs running these call centres, free toll number paid by them

Somalia:

•    How to tell community protection workers where to take child
•    Idea to use sms to report incidences, not only report but also trigger response
•    Report goes out on monthly basis, but need the information directly to help the affected child

How to avoid errors since it is open sms format:

·         The development of open source Java app that presents a form for the mobile user, the user fills in the form and the form converts the user data into SMS text. This eliminates errors in data entry.

• In confirmation sms back to sender could program format to put the category before each answer so sender can double check that data was entered and recorded correctly.

•  Way to speed up the data collecting process

·         Since only working through partners, also can check implementation and effectiveness of programs

• Can also be used for supply management

Other uses:

• advocacy/awareness messages:
  • making children aware of their rights etc.
  • Or making population aware of immunization campaign, sending something like: “go to your local health centre for immunization today!”

Malawi: 

• in use, informational messages sent to all those working in the NGO field rather than the whole population.