CIETmap is free, user-friendly software for epidemiological analysis and linked mapping. For a description of the software click here. 

CIET uses Open Data Kit (ODK) for electronic data capture. This widely-used open source package allows users to make additions and modifications to suit their requirements.

CIET has made several adaptations to the ODK package:

1.Using the GPS capability of handsets, we were able to check if fieldworkers returned to the households they were due to re-visit in the home visits programme in Bauchi, Nigeria, or completed “fake” records sitting at home, in one place in the community, or on the road. An automated check of submitted records linked to Google Map indicated where the interviews had taken place and identified those which were invalid.

2. As a further refinement, when interviewers used the same handset over time, we were able to detect if an interview was not in the correct location and block the record from being sent.

3. In order to link records of adolescents to households and avoid transcription errors with household ID numbers, we incorporated a QR code that was scanned and inserted the correct ID information into the record.

A portable plastic microscope, first developed in Eritrea, makes powerful microscopy available to areas with no electric power.

See: Andersson, N. Primary Health Care needs microscopes. Development Forum 1985; July-August: p. 5.

CIET used the Bhopal Book (designed in the immediate aftermath of the Bhopal disaster in 1984) for a decade for data capture in household interviews. In the simplest form of the Bhopal Book, the questionnaire is pasted on the outer edges of the inside covers of an exercise book and the pages are cut vertically, with responses to questions written one the page, next to each question. This robust method of data collection typically allowed one book per interviewer per site. it prevented loose pages from getting misplaced and was much easier to maintain and preserve than standard paper questionnaires. CIET replaced the Bhopal Book with scannable questionnaires (largely avoiding a manual data entry step) and in the last decade shifted to electronic data collection.