Page 147 of 201
10.3.1 EpiCollect system
EpiCollect is a data management system developed at Imperial College, London and funded by the Wellcome Trust. EpiCollect can be accessed at www.epicollect.net. It provides a web
and mobile app for the generation of forms and websites that can be used for data collection. The app can be run on any Android or iPhone operating system.
The system is intended to allow users to set up a project, design forms for collecting specified data and then use their own mobile phones to collect and upload data to a website,
either hosted by the Imperial College using the Google AppEngine, or created by the user.
The system is free to download and relatively simple to use, although configuration is not user-friendly.
The project team developed a prototype system for collection of voyage animal health data as part of this project. Development was done in house by Dr Ben Madin, using information
and instructions available on the EpiCollect website. A dedicated site
77
was created to aggregate data from any registered user as a proof of concept. The system was trialled
internally by members of the project team, but very early in the development it became apparent that EpiCollect was not going to meet industry needs.
EpiCollect is a useful and low-cost system, but is really best suited to very simple data collection needs, such as surveys. The EpiCollect framework was too simple to allow
efficient design of some of the complexities in the table structures, form design and data entry fields that would be required to ensure data was consistently coded between users. In
addition the system appeared to be relatively unstable at times, with system crashes potentially resulting in loss of entered data or inability to enter data on occasion. Attempts to
access the underlying codebase in the hope of building on it were unsuccessful.
10.3.2 FormEntry system
FormEntry is a development toolkit intended to allow developers to build their own applications for the iPad, iPhone or iPod. More information is available at:
http:www.widgetpress.comformentry
This system was developed for implementation on an iPod touch device, with the capacity to adapt it to other Apple devices iPad or iPhone.
A prototype system was developed and provided to project team members and to AAVs for trialling.
The development of this prototype system required specific development coding expertise to develop system using a base framework, representing a higher level of development input
compare to the EpiCollect prototype.
Figure 31 shows a screen grab of user interface for representative screens from the FormEntry system.
77
http:exportcollect.ausvet.com.au
Page 148 of 201 Figure 31: Screen grab of user interface for representative screens from the FormEntry
system.
The system was made available for download to selected industry stakeholders and to project team members for trialling. Feedback, both internally and from stakeholders was
mixed:
There was general support for the principle of a system that was based on hand-held devices and that synchronised to a database system.
There was very clear feedback that the system had to be intuitive and easy to use and the design limitations for FormEntry meant that the prototype system was not able to
achieve these objectives. The FormEntry approach was consistently more stable and provided more development
capacity than EpiCollect. The FormEntry platform was assessed as having limited capacity to manage the complexity
and hierarchical nature of the table structure required for livestock export data and there were problems with importing or synchronising data into the system necessary to get load
plan or animal loading lists into the system at the start of the voyage to act as a denominator for the voyage.
In conclusion the FormEntry option was deemed to be not suitable for widespread use. At the end of this process we had explored two off-the-shelf options for developing an app
for use on export voyages and neither option had allowed development of a system that achieved the desired functions and that was intuitive and easy to use. Our experiences with
these off-the-shelf options convinced us that two major design drivers of relatively complexity and hierarchical table structure, and the need for design flexibility to ensure a simple and
intuitive user interface, meant that an effective shipboard app would require custom development.
Page 149 of 201
Although neither the EpiCollect nor FormEntry options were satisfactory for the project, the feedback and development issues were valuable steps in defining the restrictions and
functional attributes for this app. Many of the principles outlined in the final part of this chapter were established during this phase.
The final step in the prototype development process was to move away from attempting to modify existing off-the-shelf products to a customised product development project.
10.3.3 Custom application
Kategori