OpenROSA, JavaROSA, GloballyMobile– Collaborations around Open Standards for Mobile Applications. M4W

Abstract: The paper reports on three interrelated open standards and coding collaboration efforts: OpenROSA, JavaROSA and GloballyMobile. The OpenROSA consortium was established to reduce duplication of effort among the many groups working on mobile data collection systems. The goal is to foster open-source, standards-based tools for mobile data collection, aggregation, analysis, and reporting. JavaROSA is an open-source platform for data collection on mobile devices. At its core, JavaROSA is based on the XForms standard -the official W3C standard for next-generation data collection and interchange. The mission of GloballyMobile is to cooperate on mobile phone application development, testing, and implementation, while sharing plans, progress, and lessons learned, in order to promote innovation, increase efficiency, and maximize the impact of humanitarian assistance. The paper also give a brief overview of projects under the OpenROSA umbrella which uses JavaROSA as the mobile data capture solution

Mobile Data Collection in Low-Budget Settings

Lack of infrastructures in health care and transportation, combined with the demand for low cost health services and shortage of medical professionals, are some of the known causes for loss of life in low income countries. mHealth is an emerging and promising mobile-health technology to bridge the gap between remotely and sparsely populated low-income communities and health care providers. Information collected in remote communities can be relayed to local health care centers and from there to the decision makers who are thus empowered to make timely decisions.As sensitive information is stored, exchanged and processed in these systems, issues like privacy, confidentiality, integrity, availability, authentication, non-repudiation and authorization must be given top priority. However, many of these systems do not systematically address very important security issues which are critical when dealing with such sensitive and private information. Well-known and recommended security solutions are ruled out because of specific requirements imposed by mobile platforms (eg. whether HTTPS is available or not) and because of challenges imposed by the working environmen

Challenges in Implementing an End-to-End Secure Protocol for Java ME-Based Mobile Data Collection in Low-Budget Settings

Abstract. Mobile devices are having a profound impact on how services can be delivered and how information can be shared. Sensitive information collected in remote communities can be relayed to local health care centers and from there to the decision makers who are thus empowered to make timely decisions. However, many of these systems do not systematically address very important security issues which are critical when dealing with such sensitive and private information. In this paper we analyze implementation challenges of a proposed security protocol based on the Java ME platform. The protocol presents a flexible secure solution that encapsulates data for storage and transmission without requiring significant changes in the existing mobile client application. The secure solution offers a cost-effective way for ensuring data confidentiality, both when stored on the mobile device and when transmitted to the server. In addition, it offers data integrity, off-line and on-line authentication, account and data recovery mechanisms, multiuser management and flexible secure configuration. A prototype of our secure solution has been integrated with openXdata

OpenROSA, JavaROSA, GloballyMobile - Collaborations around Open Standards for Mobile Applications

The paper reports on three interrelated open standards and coding collaboration efforts: OpenROSA, JavaROSA and GloballyMobile. The OpenROSA consortium was established to reduce duplication of effort among the many groups working on mobile data collection systems. The goal is to foster open-source, standards-based tools for mobile data collection, aggregation, analysis, and reporting. JavaROSA is an open-source platform for data collection on mobile devices. At its core, JavaROSA is based on the XForms standard – the official W3C standard for next-generation data collection and interchange. The mission of GloballyMobile is to cooperate on mobile phone application development, testing, and implementation, while sharing plans, progress, and lessons learned, in order to promote innovation, increase efficiency, and maximize the impact of humanitarian assistance. The paper also give a brief overview of projects under the OpenROSA umbrella which uses JavaROSA as the mobile data capture solution

OMEVAC – Open Mobile Electronic Vaccine Trials, an interdisciplinary project to improve quality of vaccine trials in low-resource settings

Emerging international standards and regulations will in few years require complete electronic systems for management of vaccine trials. Clinical trials conducted in low-income countries need to have the same level of quality and reliability as comparable studies conducted in high-income countries. This will require data collection and management systems specifically designed and developed for these settings. Research data in low-resource settings are currently mostly collected on paper forms, a process which is susceptible to errors and inefficiency. The lack of control and compliancy to study protocol is a great challenge. To solve this and related problems we will replace the paper based process with a completely digitized mobile system for conducting clinical trials based on EpiHandy and R. Researcher and field workers will use handheld computers and directly enter the collected information. This will drastically reduce the logistical challenges related to paper handling and digitization

Exclusive breastfeeding promotion by peer counsellors in sub-Saharan Africa (PROMISE-EBF): a cluster-randomised trial

Background: Exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) is reported to be a life-saving intervention in low-income settings. The effect of breastfeeding counselling by peer counsellors was assessed in Africa. Methods:24 communities in Burkina Faso, 24 in Uganda, and 34 in South Africa were assigned in a 1:1 ratio, by use of a computer-generated randomisation sequence, to the control or intervention clusters. In the intervention group, we scheduled one antenatal breastfeeding peer counselling visit and four post-delivery visits by trained peers. The data gathering team were masked to the intervention allocation. The primary outcomes were prevalance of EBF and diarrhoea reported by mothers for infants aged 12 weeks and 24 weeks. Country-specific prevalence ratios were adjusted for cluster effects and sites. Analysis was by intention to treat. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00397150. Findings 2579 mother–infant pairs were assigned to the intervention or control clusters in Burkina Faso (n=392 and n=402, respectively), Uganda (n=396 and n=369, respectively), and South Africa (n=535 and 485, respectively). The EBF prevalences based on 24-h recall at 12 weeks in the intervention and control clusters were 310 (79%) of 392 and 139 (35%) of 402, respectively, in Burkina Faso (prevalence ratio 2·29, 95% CI 1·33–3·92); 323 (82%) of 396 and 161 (44%) of 369, respectively, in Uganda (1·89, 1·70–2·11); and 56 (10%) of 535 and 30 (6%) of 485, respectively, in South Africa (1·72, 1·12–2·63). The EBF prevalences based on 7-day recall in the intervention and control clusters were 300 (77%) and 94 (23%), respectively, in Burkina Faso (3·27, 2·13–5·03); 305 (77%) and 125 (34%), respectively, in Uganda (2·30, 2·00–2·65); and 41 (8%) and 19 (4%), respectively, in South Africa (1·98, 1·30–3·02). At 24 weeks, the prevalences based on 24-h recall were 286 (73%) in the intervention cluster and 88 (22%) in the control cluster in Burkina Faso (3·33, 1·74–6·38); 232 (59%) and 57 (15%), respectively, in Uganda (3·83, 2·97–4·95); and 12 (2%) and two (<1%), respectively, in South Africa (5·70, 1·33–24·26). The prevalences based on 7-day recall were 279 (71%) in the intervention cluster and 38 (9%) in the control cluster in Burkina Faso (7·53, 4·42–12·82); 203 (51%) and 41 (11%), respectively, in Uganda (4·66, 3·35–6·49); and ten (2%) and one (<1%), respectively, in South Africa (9·83, 1·40–69·14). Diarrhoea prevalence at age 12 weeks in the intervention and control clusters was 20 (5%) and 36 (9%), respectively, in Burkina Faso (0·57, 0·27–1·22); 39 (10%) and 32 (9%), respectively, in Uganda (1·13, 0·81–1·59); and 45 (8%) and 33 (7%), respectively, in South Africa (1·16, 0·78–1·75). The prevalence at age 24 weeks in the intervention and control clusters was 26 (7%) and 32 (8%), respectively, in Burkina Faso (0·83, 0·45–1·54); 52 (13%) and 59 (16%), respectively, in Uganda (0·82, 0·58–1·15); and 54 (10%) and 33 (7%), respectively, in South Africa (1·31, 0·89–1·93). Interpretation: Low-intensity individual breastfeeding peer counselling is achievable and, although it does not affect the diarrhoea prevalence, can be used to effectively increase EBF prevalence in many sub-Saharan African settings.European Union, Sixth Framework International Cooperation–Developing Countries, Research Council of Norway, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Norwegian Programme for Development, Research and Education, South African National Research Foundation, and Rockefeller Brothers Foundation.Web of Scienc