MICS Plus Company needed to Oversee specifics of the mobile applications of the MICS Plus field test in Belize

Summary

Title: MICS Plus Company

Purpose: Oversee specifics of the mobile applications of the MICS Plus field test in Belize

Location: UNICEF Belize

Duration: 11 Months

Start Date: July 2019

Reporting to: Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist

Background:

The Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) programme, established in 1995, has become the largest source of statistically sound and internationally comparable data on children worldwide with over 300 surveys in 118 countries. MICS surveys are designed and implemented by national governments with the technical support of UNICEF. The surveys are representative, with an average sample size above 10,000 households in MICS5. Interviewers administer questionnaires during face-to-face interviews regarding the household, interview women and men age 15 to 49 years and mothers/caretakers of children age 0 to 17, using two separate questionnaires (the Under-5 and the 5-17 Questionnaires). 

To advance UNICEF’s goals of ensuring that countries have high-quality tools to generate robust data on their populations quickly and easily, UNICEF is launching a new survey methodology, MICS Plus. The MICS Plus surveys will harness the rigor of MICS with the flexibility and nimbleness of mobile platforms to allow channels for generating data on emergencies and opinions and follow up on specific issues related to programme coverage.  

MICS Plus surveys will use representative sub-samples of MICS surveys as baselines to continue collecting data via mobile phones at frequent intervals, accumulating longitudinal data which will be rapidly analyzed and disseminated. MICS Plus will employ Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews (CATI) to gather data and will necessarily need assistance to develop a suitable management and data capture system for the surveys which will run for approximately 11 months (subject to survey conditions), for which each round of data collection takes place monthly.

Towards these ends, MICS Plus will be field tested in Belize in 2019 and require a technological partner capable of providing tailored assistance to the mobile and technological aspects of mobile phone surveys using CATI.

The purpose of this consultancy is to hire an institution which will oversee specifics of the mobile applications of the MICS Plus field test in Belize. The MICS Plus process is closely linked to the MICS process and both survey parts must work in tandem with each other.

Methodology

Based on an initial baseline MICS survey which will be carried out using usual MICS methodology, phone numbers of respondents will be collected and sub-samples of these will be used as a sample for MICS Plus. These respondents will be contacted periodically by telephone.

The assignment is to work on the development of an android application for the capture of data from telephone interviews, develop a platform for managing the data capture and train UNICEF and others in the functioning of the aforementioned. The application must be fully functional on Windows laptops and android tablets.

The application must include the ability to interface with MICS datasets from CSPro in order to select the sample and key data for interviewing. The application must ensure that survey managers have mechanisms to monitor the work of interviews, adjust work flows as necessary and the ability to take corrective actions as possible. The application must also be able to store data collected during interviews in formats that can be easily analyzed and then exported to a variety of programmes commonly used for micro-analysis such as SPSS and STATA. Further the incoming institution must ensure that UNICEF is trained on these methods and the institution provides ongoing support for data collection and quality assurance during the survey cycle.

The selected institution is expected to be able to handle on average, between 500-1000 completed interviews per month, including data quality checks, analysis and provision on automated weighting of the results. Questions for MICS Plus will be provided by UNICEF. Training for the content of these will come from UNICEF. However, the selected institution is expected to train interviewers at the start of MICS Plus on the standard operating procedures of mobile phones and devices (tablets and computers) that support CATI.

The MICS Plus is expected to run for 11 months of continuous study with calls made in rounds every month. The organization must be capable of ongoing support to the exercise for data capture, data analysis and quality assurance.

UNICEF will have full access to all data, storage systems and management systems at all times. All products of the process remain property of UNICEF. The selected institution shall not share any data, documentation or programming files generated in this project with any third parties without written authorization of UNICEF’s contracting officer.

Expected Deliverables

The outputs will include:

1.         A mobile application (or applications) for android devices that

interfaces with CSPro outputs in MICS to draw the sample for MICS Plus and other related information crucial for interviewing (such as best times to interview, names, phone numbers, family relations and results of key questions, etc.);

2.         Create a call management platform for phone interviews;

3.         Create a data capture system which can be used on android devices for CATI;

4.         Envelop a means and protocol to transfer phone credit to participants on a routine basis following participation in MICS Plus on a monthly basis; 

5.         Create a data quality checking system and protocol for phone interviews (e.g. interviewer performance) (To be done in coordination and collaboration with UNCIEF);

6.         Create a data analysis system and protocols for CATI data, including raw tabulations and tabulations done with appropriate sample weights (To be done in coordination and collaboration with UNCIEF);

7.         Deployment of a light footprint call centre which the institution hired will set up and train interviewers (provided by the government of Belize) and UNICEF staff on;

8.         MICS Plus questions (provided by UNICEF) programmed into android app for CATI each month, delivered 1 week before the start of each new round of interviewing;

9.         Metadata for phone calls provided on a weekly basis and monthly report of aggregated phone call data 1 week after the end of each monthly round of phone calls

10.       Raw data for the MICS Plus interviews, including completed and incomplete interviews, (in various formats such as SPSS and STATA) shared with UNICEF immediately at the end of each monthly round and a dataset that has been checked for consistency and structure will be provided to UNICEF within 1 week of the close of monthly interviewing;

11.       Train partners and UNICEF on how to customize and run the aforementioned system;

12.       Provide ongoing support, review and troubleshooting for the MICS Plus activities regarding the mobile capture and real-time analysis of data;

13.       Monthly report on activities including specifics of phone interviews (metadata), data quality, data tabulation and final analysis

Reporting

The selected institution will report to UNCIEF Belize, which holds the contract.

The following reports are expected in electronic format:

• Inception report at the start of the project with details of how the project will be developed and deployed, including training materials for deployment of call centre (including training materials, recommended set-up protocols, templates on calculating human resource and technological apparatus etc.)

• Monthly report on activities including specifics of phone interviews (metadata), data quality, data tabulation and final analysis, along with data files for each month of CATI, and any ad hoc issues seen in the month

Expected background and Experience

The institution selected must have relevant experience and qualifications in the following areas:

• Extensive experience with collecting data using CATI or similar approaches

• Data collection in a range of settings (emergency, low and middle-income countries)

• 2-5 experts working on data capture, mobile technology, survey methodology

• Experts must have a minimum of 8 years of relevant experience in data collection, mobile technology or survey methodology and advance degrees in related fields. Experience in lieu of degree can be considered.

Evaluation Criteria

1. Institutions are requested to develop a proposal for review by UNICEF. Proposals will be evaluated based on how well they are able to meet high-quality deliverables, the type and quality of expert support available from the institution, track record and ability to work long-term on the project.
2. The proposal should include a technical proposal (to include CVs of experts) and a price proposal. In the technical proposal, illustrative calculations of materials, equipment and personnel are expected for a scenario of 1000 phone questionnaire of 10-15-minutes duration completed in a month. The calculations should include the number of interviewers, amount and recommended type of equipment (phones, tablets, etc.).
3. The weight allocated between the technical and price proposal is 70/30 (technical/price).  Technical evaluation criteria are related to demonstrated ability and experience to deliver similar products in similar country settings.
4. Interviews of the various institutions will be considered as necessary. The evaluation of experts will be conducted on the basis of their CVs.
5. Institutions are requested to provide an all-inclusive cost in the financial proposal.UNICEF will supply staff to work with the selected institution as well as office space and usual office infrastructure (e.g. Internet, printers, desks etc.)

Payment Schedule

A payment at receipt of the inception report will be made.  Further payments will be made on a monthly basis with the receipt of monthly activity reports (which includes datafiles).

Confidentiality of Data and MICS Documents

The Household Survey Consultant must respect the confidentiality of the MICS data as well as any country specific MICS documents that will be produced throughout the MICS process. The Household Survey Consultant can use the documents and the datasets only for the tasks related to these terms of reference.

How to Apply

Please submit Technical and financial proposal to Louigie Adan Gomez at lagomez@unicef.org with subject line: “MICS Plus Belize” by 23 May 2019, 5:00pm.