Hi Chris, 

This is quite a broad question - could you share a bit more about what sort of activities you need these tools to support? Is it collecting data, recording patrolling effort, monitoring specfic species? A little more info would help us get you pointed in the right direction. 

Steph

Jambo Chris,

Try ODK Collect from OpenDataKit.org

Regards.

Hi,

From what you say simpler is better.

How about the rangers just take a photo with a phone and share it to a known email address?

OR

Take a short selfie video (note) or sound recording and send to that email address?

In the interest of simplification, the phone's gps should be enabled.  If out of gsm range, it is possible that the emails get "stacked up" and batch sent when returning to an area with signal.

Another option is to install an Android app called  Tasker. (https://www.google.com/search?ei=KlNhXcXDEsbLwQLTl6rwBA&q=tasker+for+android&oq=tasker+for+android). Be aware of 2 important things though a) the phone has to be "rooted" b) Tasker can get horribly complicated real fast - its a dev tool for dev types. Hence I link you to the google results page, not just the Tasker site.

I do not know your exact use-case but if you can control (supply?) the hardware, root it, install Tasker, and create a custom environment then it is my understanding you can then force-enable some features (eg gps, maybe hard-code the email address?) and disable other features which would confuse your operatives, extend battery life and also possibly prevent misuse.

This throws up a whole load of questions, not least of which would be regarding the gps data being embedded in the ex-if data of the image, or written into the email, and how to then extract the meaningful data from the target email inbox into some searchable data set.

Just an idea.

Hi Chris,

you should also check out our Wildlife Tools Suite (WITS), from Sensing Clues. 

By design it is easy and swift to use. New users typically master the tools within hours. Data collection and creating patrol map, risk maps, etc. never has been easier (not my words, but what users are saying about it). 

By design it is scalable. Aggregation of projects and conservation areas is a matter of adding a link.

And last but not least, it is completely turn-key, operational while we talk ;-) 

If you want to learn more about us, drop us a note at [email protected]. 

best,

Jan Kees