Requirements- How to collect data?

[Timothy D. Ginn]

Speaking from a technical standpoint, it is certainly very easy to do data collection that is compatible with Microsoft Excel, and most other spread sheet programs through the use of comma-delimited files (CSV). Since it's so easy to do that in the technical aspects, I think it would be a viable formatting option, especially given how many people are already familiar with using their favourite spreadsheet program.

This also has the advantage of spread sheet programs being available for many devices that use the CSV format, for example, Windows CE devices are able to process this format using Spread CE, or Microsoft Pocket Excel. I do not have access to a Palm-OS device, but I imagine the spreadsheet software they posess could deal with this information as well.

The main disadvantage to doing this that I can see is what happens if the field names change? That could probably be dealt with easily enough through the use of a header column, though.

Also, for a more obscure system, you could always set up something that uses WML and interfaces with cell phones, if the data is primarily numericial in nature, this wouldn't be too bad-- since cell phones with internet access are becoming increasingly common, however this would have the disadvantage of requiring the regional database servers to have a constant internet connection in order to receive cell phone submitted data.