Dear all
It is fine with me to discuss alternatives to EpiData Entry etc. on the list her, but before we get too many suggestions I would like to ask those replying to declare which interests (money wise or otherwise) they have on the software they describe.
My only filter is that I suggest to only discuss open-source and or free-ware alternatives.
It makes little sense to compare commercial software with large staff for development with alternatives such as EpiData financed on whatever funding can be attracted and is on a small scale.
Someone might disagree with this, but then discuss functionality in a general way. What we need as professionals is functionality suitable to the needs, we do not need large license fees, patents etc. Just try to open adobe reader for pdf files and see the number of patents shown.
The best option is if someone writes a proper research article in which the softwares are compared in relation to many aspects such as: a. stability b. number and relevance of options c. availability in price and delivery d. speed e. time to install and get to work f. time and possibility to recreate a "broken" database g. the demands in terms of manpower and skills of database people to run the system h. which formal types of data can be securely managed - e.g. sensitive health data i. format and degree of openness of the data file format ...... add to the list....
Regards
Jens Lauritsen EpiData Association - obvious interest in software types
On 2011-07-05 16:34, epidata-list@lists.umanitoba.ca wrote:
Hello. Dr. Pedro Emmanuel, I think you should look for CsPro software. http://www.census.gov/population/international/software/cspro/ It has been widely used in most of the under developped countries for ten years. It has large capacities and is used to type census data. It is also used for most of the Demographic& Health Surveys (DHS) in the institutes of statistics. It has a large set of programming capabilities and a high security management system. I usually use epidata for small data entries but what require more expertise I prefer CsPro or Relational DBMS... Kind regards.