ODK

Inspiring work from OMDTZ. It’s great to see how ODK Central’s built-in maps help project managers quickly identify gaps, assess data quality, and make operational decisions.

The CIMaE project, led by Marie Lamouille-Hébert and France Nature Environnement Haute-Savoie, is using ODK to study how climate change is reshaping fragile ecosystems, starting with high-altitude ponds in the Alps. These ponds regulate flooding, filter water, support biodiversity, and store carbon. But as temperatures rise, many are drying up, while new ones are forming near retreating glaciers. To understand and protect them, they first need to be found. That’s why the project is inviting hikers, campers, naturalists, and anyone spending time in the mountains to contribute. Using ODK, participants can map pond locations, capture photos, and record key details. And of course, it all works offline. We love to see ODK being used to build a living record of these ponds, where each visit adds to what’s already known, helping scientists better understand changes and protect these environments. Learn about the protocol and how to participate at https://lnkd.in/gq-VmNGr

Flooding in Zimbabwe is a yearly reality, but disaster preparedness has been held back by gaps in geospatial data... With support from government, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and Caritas Zimbabwe worked with local stakeholders to map flood-prone communities, evacuation centers, health facilities, and impassable roads in Muzarabani District. The result is that government officials and humanitarian organizations can now coordinate around the same shared map. ODK was the primary tool used for field data collection. Teams captured detailed information about schools, health facilities, water sources, sanitation facilities, evacuation routes, and flood-prone roads, helping answer real planning questions, like whether a school could actually serve as an evacuation center during flooding. What we especially like about this project is that the data was not treated as a one-off mapping exercise. Instead it was embedded directly into a Multi-Hazard Contingency Plan, so it can directly support preparedness and response. Learn more at https://lnkd.in/gnxDibRY

The latest update to ODK Web Forms lets respondents upload PDFs, images, videos, and audio files from a phone, tablet, or computer. It’s a polished, intuitive experience that makes it easy to collect documents, visual evidence, or recordings as part of a submission. Need respondents to upload files? Request a demo at https://getodk.org to see whether ODK Web Forms are a good fit for your project.

ODK is helping make antimicrobial resistance surveillance more rigorous, and this new study from the University of Oxford and Mahidol University shows why that matters. Working across three national hospitals in Viet Nam, researchers used ODK on tablets to capture longitudinal clinical data at enrollment, discharge, and 28-day follow up, and link it with microbiology records, making it possible to understand not just which pathogens were present, but where infections were being acquired. The findings are sobering. Resistance was substantially higher in healthcare-associated and hospital-acquired infections than in community-acquired infections, especially for pathogens like P. aeruginosa, K. pneumoniae, and S. aureus. Congratulations to Hoa Nguyen Thi, Nguyen Quoc Phuong, Naomi Waithira, Tamalee Roberts, Jill Hopkins, Paul Turner, H. Rogier van Doorn and the entire team for advancing clinically grounded surveillance. It's great to see ODK used in this important work. Interested in learning more? Find all the details in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases: https://lnkd.in/g6FCDkB3

We’ve heard your feedback! The latest update to ODK now lets you customize the login page with your own logo, hero image, and welcome message. For some teams, that means stronger branding. For others, it means a more useful entry point to orient new users, share helpful context with existing users, or just make the experience feel more connected to their work. This is the first step in an ongoing push to give you more control over how ODK looks and feels. What else would you like to customize in ODK?

In Sierra Leone, ODK is powering a very different kind of data collection... Researchers from LSHTM have created a physical board game where people make real tradeoffs across human, animal, and environmental health. As pieces move, you see negotiation, disagreement, and local context shaping decisions in real time. What’s different is how those decisions are captured. Every move is recorded in ODK using an image map that mirrors the board so a social, low-tech interaction becomes structured data, paired with the reasoning behind each choice. You’re not just capturing answers, you’re capturing how decisions are made. Congratulations to Anthony Mansaray, Luisa Enria, Melissa Parker, and Chrissy h Roberts for their inventive approach to capturing real-world decision-making. Learn more at https://lnkd.in/givihERe.

Most programs collect data, but fewer use it operationally. This WHO project shows what happens when programs use ODK to close that gap. In Eastern Uganda, teams used ODK to identify and map missed children and and adjusted plans in real time to reach them. This kind of work is powered by ODK's Entities feature, which helps teams keep track of the same people, places, and facilities over time so each visit builds on the last. You see the same pattern in inspections, facility readiness, agriculture visits, and supply chains. The teams that do best aren’t just collecting data, they’re using it to decide what to do next. https://lnkd.in/gjxy6BYd

Some of the hardest work in public health is reaching people who are easiest to miss. This story from UNICEF in Sierra Leone shows what that really takes, long distances, rough conditions, and health workers showing up again and again to make sure families are reached. When teams are operating like this, the details matter. Who was visited, who still needs a dose, what happened on the last trip. ODK is used to keep track of that work, registering households, recording vaccinations, and making sure nothing falls through the cracks, even without connectivity. This is what operational data collection is for, not dashboards, but helping teams follow through and make sure no one is missed. https://lnkd.in/gsi48MG4

In 2024, Niger and Nigeria vaccinated more than 4.8 million people with a new vaccine that protects against major strains of meningococcal meningitis. Health workers in Niger used ODK to report any side effects they observed. A new study from Olga Menang and team shows the results were reassuring. Most reported reactions were mild, serious events were extremely rare, and no new safety concerns were identified. Read the paper at https://lnkd.in/gztRBzyg Whether you’re running vaccination campaigns, inspecting infrastructure, or mapping farmland, tools like ODK help frontline teams capture reliable field data and get it to decision makers quickly.