Data deleted without notice on tablets

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shafique arif
Posts: 68
Joined: August 25th, 2013, 1:21 am

Data deleted without notice on tablets

Post by shafique arif »

Hi Josh and CSPro Users
I am facing one problem and do not know the reason. We are doing a survey where we have 4 questionnaires and are being administered to different respondents in a household. These questionnaires are administered via Menu. Field staff uploads their data to dropbox from tablets. In about 1% of the sampled households, we did not get at least one questionnaire's data in dropbox. Interviewers were 110% sure that they completed all questionnaires in a household (and we believe it because these questionnaires are linked with each other in one way or other-some of the information goes from one questionnaire to the other). Later we checked data on tablets but did not find data of missing questionnaire on tablet either. I am using 7.1.3 version.

I experienced same problem in my previous survey but thought it might be a problem with field staff.

Have anyone else experienced similar problem? What is the possible reason for lossing data? What is the solution? To me this serious problem of losing data and also embarrassing too as CSPro users!

Shafique
josh
Posts: 2399
Joined: May 5th, 2014, 12:49 pm
Location: Washington DC

Re: Data deleted without notice on tablets

Post by josh »

We have not seen this behavior before. I would look at the sync log files to see if there were any errors during synchronization that could have caused cases to be skipped. It would also be interesting to know if there is any pattern to which cases are missing. For example, were these cases that were partially saved or entered and then later modified. Were they uploaded to Dropbox at the same time as other cases that did arrive in the Dropbox.

I would also look at the obvious things too like did anyone delete any files from the Dropbox (you can see this from the Dropbox web page).
shafique arif
Posts: 68
Joined: August 25th, 2013, 1:21 am

Re: Data deleted without notice on tablets

Post by shafique arif »

Thanks Josh for swift response.
1) All field staff uploaded their data every evening after completion of field work.
2) I checked on dropbox/CSPro files and there is no record of deleting missing cases
3) Though Field teams do not admit that they modified/checked cases after completion of field work but I fear that some of supervisors checked data at hotel. Question: If a supervisor/enumerator check it (go through a case), is there a possibility that that case will be deleted?

Regards
josh
Posts: 2399
Joined: May 5th, 2014, 12:49 pm
Location: Washington DC

Re: Data deleted without notice on tablets

Post by josh »

None of those things should cause data to be deleted or cause them to not to sync. I was just hoping to find some kind pattern in the missing cases. Without that I don't have any idea what could be going wrong and don't have any place to start looking.
aimee_benson
Posts: 2
Joined: May 6th, 2019, 3:48 pm

Re: Data deleted without notice on tablets

Post by aimee_benson »

Hi all,

I have run into a possibly similar situation. I have discovered that an entire record's data have been deleted at random for 604 out of 3813 observations from a CAPI system that we used in Rwanda. There are 19 records in this particular questionnaire; 18 records have full data, while I cannot determine a pattern for the missing data for this one record. The group of 604 observations that are missing this one record are scattered across interviewers and supervisors, although some interviewers show up more often than others. This group of 604 is also scattered across all of our survey arms- it is not concentrated in one location. They are also scattered across time- some happened in November, some in December.

I have checked my logic to see if there is an unintentional skip programmed- I cannot find any reference to this section in the code that would lead to a skip of it. I examined the data from the record that immediately precedes this section to see if a particular response there might be triggering something, but all combinations of answers are represented in those data. I looked at a dummy variable that was on the screen that contained the introduction to the variables found on this missing record (dummy variable saved on a different record) and it looks as though the interviewers for this group of 604 read the introduction to start the section. I looked at the date and time stamp of the end of the preceding record and the date and time stamp for the start of the subsequent record- the amount of time that elapsed also seems to indicate that the interviewers answered the questions in this missing record.

Unfortunately, all of the tablets are still in Rwanda so I cannot examine the tablets themselves to see if could be a problem of syncing or if there are any other clues.

Do you have any other ideas of what I could check?

Thanks so much,
Aimee
aimee_benson
Posts: 2
Joined: May 6th, 2019, 3:48 pm

Re: Data deleted without notice on tablets

Post by aimee_benson »

I should have also mentioned that I was using 7.1.3.
Astrid
Posts: 1
Joined: May 17th, 2019, 4:35 am

Re: Data deleted without notice on tablets

Post by Astrid »

Hi, I have similar issue.

I interviewed some respondents using MAPI, in the MAPI I implant respondent data (respondent name and houshold member) from previous survey. After I interviewed several respondents there are two to four cases missing. I already disabled the delete function so I can ensure that there is no case that is deleted on purpose. We also experience a case that after we "accept the case", the results of data entry are not recorded (lost).

Do you have any idea? Please note that we already check the csdb that the case is not recorded.

regards

astrid
Gregory Martin
Posts: 1777
Joined: December 5th, 2011, 11:27 pm
Location: Washington, DC

Re: Data deleted without notice on tablets

Post by Gregory Martin »

If data is being deleted, or if you think that data might be being deleted, please email cspro@lists.census.gov. If you can send your application, that will help us try to figure out the problem. We will try to determine if it is a CSPro problem or a problem with your application.

Generally I would think that an unintended skip is leading to the data not being written out, but it doesn't seem like that's the issue for you guys.
Enkhbayar
Posts: 68
Joined: November 10th, 2014, 11:48 pm

Re: Data deleted without notice on tablets

Post by Enkhbayar »

We had same problem, but it solved when we shifted from 7.1 to 7.2

I guess, v7.1 has a bug.
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