Working with some staff and content that has been successful on paper that may hamper digital data collection.
Is there a format/process to create a kobo form that when filled out in paper can be then photographed or scanned to be digitized? Thinking like old school test forms like scantron, etc?
Majority of questions are select from options but answers come up through conversation of sensitive topics. Enumerators are experienced and technology not always an option in the field compared to pen and paper.
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Welcome back to the community, @vc_core! Did you mean you wish to first conduct your survey form in a hard copy and than digitalize and directly store it in the KoboToolbox server? Feel free to correct me if I understood you differently.
Thanks. Yes to paper form completion. The digitization could be anyway to get it into a table/spreadsheet format
I like the form designing style of kobo and replication of templates. wondering if this would have kobo for form layout that is image/computer readable to be digitized
Yes, you can design a KoboToolbox form optimized for OCR (Optical Character Recognition) or AI-assisted digitization. Consider these steps:
- Structured Layout – Use a standardized grid or checkbox format, similar to Scantron, for easy scanning.
- QR Codes/Identifiers – Include a unique ID for each form to match digital records.
- OCR-Compatible Fonts – Use clear, machine-readable fonts (e.g., Arial, Times New Roman).
- AI-Based Digitization – Use tools like Google’s Document AI, OpenCV, or Tesseract OCR to extract data from scanned forms.
- Hybrid Process – Enumerators fill paper forms, then scan/upload them to a system that auto-converts data into KoboToolbox.
If OCR is unreliable due to handwriting, consider structured multiple-choice grids or barcodes for faster digitization.
