Manage Data in Ona
Management is crucial for the ASLM lab mapping project. Many countries have existing data that may need to be merged or reconciled with newly collected data. Over time, data must also be curated and then utilized by other systems. Simple and effective data management along with effective tools are key to success.
Any data collection software creates at least one id column, so each record is different to the other. It is very usual that people tend to think that a name of something (a lab in this case) is enough to identify a record, but that is not true, specially when you work with more than 300 records. Inside ONA we need to have a unique identifier for each record. The first thing to take care of after every iteration of data collection is to identify the data univocally.
If someone in the project decides to make changes on the data structure (name, type, location of each field) they should keep track of those changes. This is typically done through a versioned data dictionary. The xlsform associated with data collection can serve this purpose. There are fields in the form that are strongly recommended to keep standardized, see here for more details.
When multiple datasets exist, Ona also provides a feature for data merging (only for paid plans), here is a simple explanation on how it works. In the ASLM LabMaP program this feature will be very useful as it allows to merge multiple sources of country data into a single collection.
Curate Data in Ona
1. To edit data that is already in Ona, open the form that you are using. Next select either the Map or Table view from the top menu.
2. Navigate to or search for the site you wish to update, and select "edit".
3. Edit the entry, and save the updated result.
Share Data in Ona
To share data from Ona to other tools or users, there are several different options.