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Version 1.0 EN (English), November
2007 Introduction
The present manual is intended to be a reference for the use of Personal Digital Assistants or PDAs, which are handheld devices that use a stylus rather than a keyboard to record data, applied in our case for conducting socio-economic surveys. Although no previous knowledge on socio-economic surveys or similar programs is required, being familiar with the use of PDAs is useful, as well as experience with PCs in the use of the File Explorer program, and the operation of the Pocket settings. For any reference, it is recommended you use the PDA's own manual. The present manual is targeted to any user interested in conducting socioeconomic surveys through the Pocket PC, and the Socioeconomic Survey Form program. The manual covers fundamental aspects including the program installation and its requirements, and a brief step-by-step tutorial for the user to start exploring the main features of the program. As a user, if you are only interested in conducting surveys, probably reading only the tutorial and PDA use and questionnaire management section will be enough. If you are a supervisor or administrator in charge of collecting the data form the questionnaire, you will need to go through the full manual because you will need to know all the program requirements and the installation in the Pocket, for copying the files (data) from the Pocket to the PC, and to familiarize yourself with the template syntax to be able to modify it based on the changes made on the questionnaire. About Socioeconomic Survey programs These programs were developed at CIMMYT for conducting field socioeconomic surveys by means of PDAs and PCs. The process of collecting data in the PDA or PC consists of designing the survey on the PC using the Socioeconomic Survey Design (SSD) program, taking the questions from the questionnaire and programming them into the PC. This generates the template containing the questions in a file with extension .ssf. This file allows the Socioeconomic Survey Form (SSF) for the PDA, as well as the Socioeconomic Survey Design (SSD) for the PC, to interpret the template and design the backbone of the questionnaire on the screen, capturing the survey data by means of a set of validation rules in the program. The Survey tools are divided into two programs. Socioeconomic Survey Form Socioeconomic Survey Form (The SSF) is a program designed for Pocket PCs. You can build entry forms based on templates for entering new information and display or edit entered data. The number of questions you can enter is limited only by the capacity of the Pocket PC. In the forms, you record the information in XML files. With the SSF you can:
Socioeconomic Survey Design Socioeconomic Survey Design (The SSD) is a program designed for PCs. It allows users to design templates for Pocket PCs. The templates are files with XML syntax that the Socioeconomic Survey Form program reads and constructs so as to generate forms for entering data through controls such as text fields, boxes, radio buttons, and lists. SSD also allows you to create validation rules. The templates have an *.ssf extension and the data captured is saved in the *.xml extension files with the same file name as the template files. Basic requirements PC with a Microsoft operating system (tested with Windows 2000 and XP). The PC should have a minimum processor speed of 1 GHz. The PC must have the Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 Redistributable Package installed to be able to execute the installation program (Socioeconomic Survey Form.msi). The PC must have Windows installed. This program will not run on a Macintosh computer. Pocket PC device operates with one of the following systems installed: Pocket PC 2003/SE or Windows Mobile 5.0. To have the Socioeconomic Survey Form operating on the Pocket, Microsoft .Net Compact Framework 2.0 Redistributable must be installed. Full version of the manual, please click on the link below:
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January, 2008