IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v5y2013i8p3288-3301d27714.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Remotely Accessible Instrumented Monitoring of Global Development Programs: Technology Development and Validation

Author

Listed:
  • Evan A. Thomas

    (Portland State University, Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department, 1930 SW 4th Ave, Suite 400, Portland, OR 97201, USA)

  • Zdenek Zumr

    (Portland State University, Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department, 1930 SW 4th Ave, Suite 400, Portland, OR 97201, USA)

  • Jodi Graf

    (Portland State University, Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department, 1930 SW 4th Ave, Suite 400, Portland, OR 97201, USA)

  • Carson A. Wick

    (Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 777 Atlantic Drive Northwest, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA)

  • James H. McCellan

    (Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 777 Atlantic Drive Northwest, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA)

  • Zachary Imam

    (Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 777 Atlantic Drive Northwest, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA)

  • Christina Barstow

    (University of Colorado at Boulder, Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, UCB 401, Boulder, CO 80301, USA)

  • Kelly Spiller

    (Stevens Water Monitoring Inc., 12067 NE Glenn Widing Dr. #106, Portland, OR 97220, USA)

  • Michael Fleming

    (Stevens Water Monitoring Inc., 12067 NE Glenn Widing Dr. #106, Portland, OR 97220, USA)

Abstract

Many global development agencies self-report their project outcomes, often relying on subjective data that is collected sporadically and communicated months later. These reports often highlight successes and downplay challenges. Instrumented monitoring via distributed data collection platforms may provide crucial evidence to help inform the sector and public on the effectiveness of aid, and the on-going challenges. This paper presents the process of designing and validating an integrated sensor platform with cellular-to-internet reporting purposely targeted at global development programs. The integrated hardware platform has been applied to water, sanitation, energy and infrastructure interventions and validated through laboratory calibration and field observations. Presented here are two examples: a water pump and a household water filter, wherein field observations agreed with the data algorithm with a linear fit slope of between 0.91 and 1, and an r-squared of between 0.36 and 0.39, indicating a wide confidence interval but with low overall error ( i.e. , less than 0.5% in the case of structured field observations of water volume added to a household water filter) and few false negatives or false positives.

Suggested Citation

  • Evan A. Thomas & Zdenek Zumr & Jodi Graf & Carson A. Wick & James H. McCellan & Zachary Imam & Christina Barstow & Kelly Spiller & Michael Fleming, 2013. "Remotely Accessible Instrumented Monitoring of Global Development Programs: Technology Development and Validation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(8), pages 1-14, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:5:y:2013:i:8:p:3288-3301:d:27714
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/8/3288/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/8/3288/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kremer, Michael R. & Karlan, D. S. & Hornbeck, Richard A. & Gine, X. & Duflo, E. & Pariente, W. & Null, C. & Miguel, E. & Devoto, F. & Crepon, B. & Banerjee, A. & Zwane, A. P. & Zinman, J. & Van Dusen, 2011. "Being Surveyed Can Change Later Behavior and Related Parameter Estimates," Scholarly Articles 11339433, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nick Turman-Bryant & Corey Nagel & Lauren Stover & Christian Muragijimana & Evan A. Thomas, 2019. "Improved Drought Resilience Through Continuous Water Service Monitoring and Specialized Institutions—A Longitudinal Analysis of Water Service Delivery Across Motorized Boreholes in Northern Kenya," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-16, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Das, Jishnu & Hammer, Jeffrey & Sánchez-Paramo, Carolina, 2012. "The impact of recall periods on reported morbidity and health seeking behavior," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 76-88.
    2. Victor Stango & Jonathan Zinman, 2014. "Limited and Varying Consumer Attention: Evidence from Shocks to the Salience of Bank Overdraft Fees," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(4), pages 990-1030.
    3. Brown, Joe & Hamoudi, Amar & Jeuland, Marc & Turrini, Gina, 2017. "Seeing, believing, and behaving: Heterogeneous effects of an information intervention on household water treatment," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 141-159.
    4. Rema Hanna & Sendhi Mullainathan & Josh Schwartstein, 2012. "Learning Through Noticing: Theory and Experimental Evidence in Farming," CID Working Papers 245, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    5. Simons, Andrew M. & Beltramo, Theresa & Blalock, Garrick & Levine, David I., 2017. "Using unobtrusive sensors to measure and minimize Hawthorne effects: Evidence from cookstoves," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 68-80.
    6. Edward Asiedu & Dean Karlan & Monica Lambon-Quayefio & Christopher Udry, 2021. "A call for structured ethics appendices in social science papers," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 118(29), pages 2024570118-, July.
    7. Bleemer, Zachary & Zafar, Basit, 2018. "Intended college attendance: Evidence from an experiment on college returns and costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 184-211.
    8. Luis Armona & Andreas Fuster & Basit Zafar, 2019. "Home Price Expectations and Behaviour: Evidence from a Randomized Information Experiment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(4), pages 1371-1410.
    9. Szabó, Andrea & Ujhelyi, Gergely, 2015. "Reducing nonpayment for public utilities: Experimental evidence from South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 20-31.
    10. Kristina Czura & Andreas Menzel & Martina Miotto, 2019. "Menstrual Health, Worker Productivity and Well-being among Female Bangladeshi Garment Workers," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp649, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    11. Valenti, Albert & Yildirim, Gokhan & Vanhuele, Marc & Srinivasan, Shuba & Pauwels, Koen, 2023. "Advertising’s sequence of effects on consumer mindset and sales: A comparison across brands and product categories," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 435-454.
    12. Landeghem, Bert Van & Cörvers, Frank & Grip, Andries de, 2017. "Is there a rationale to contact the unemployed right from the start? Evidence from a natural field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 158-168.
    13. Banerjee, Abhijit & Hanna, Rema & Kyle, Jordan C. & Olken, Benjamin A. & Sumarto, Sudarno, 2015. "The Power of Transparency: Information, Identification Cards, and Food Subsidy Programs in Indonesia," Working Paper Series rwp15-010, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    14. Thomas F. Crossley & Jochem Bresser & Liam Delaney & Joachim Winter, 2017. "Can Survey Participation Alter Household Saving Behaviour?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(606), pages 2332-2357, November.
    15. Hammer, Jeffrey & Spears, Dean, 2013. "Village sanitation and children's human capital : evidence from a randomized experiment by the Maharashtra government," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6580, The World Bank.
    16. Rudolf, Katrin & Romero, Miriam & Asnawi, Rosyani & Irawan, Bambang & Wollni, Meike, 2020. "Effects of information and seedling provision on tree planting and survival in smallholder oil palm plantations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    17. Felipe Kast & Dina Pomeranz, 2013. "Saving More to Borrow Less: Experimental Evidence from Access to Formal Savings Accounts in Chile," Harvard Business School Working Papers 14-001, Harvard Business School, revised Jun 2014.
    18. Dupas, Pascaline & Huillery, Elise & Seban, Juliette, 2018. "Risk information, risk salience, and adolescent sexual behavior: Experimental evidence from Cameroon," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 151-175.
    19. Sachin Gathani & Maria Paula Gomez & Ricardo Sabates & Dimitri Stoelinga, 2015. "The Effect of Monitoring," Evaluation Review, , vol. 39(6), pages 555-586, December.
    20. O'Connor, Richard J. & Rousu, Matthew C. & Corrigan, Jay R. & Travers, Maansi Bansal, 2018. "Does winning an experimental auction change people's behavior? An application to e-cigarettes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 281-285.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:5:y:2013:i:8:p:3288-3301:d:27714. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.