Data Updating in Fujairah Conducted by Surveyors with PDAs

Training Surveyors
A training session was conducted yesterday (28 December 2010) by the Fujairah Statistics Center and attended by 40-50 people who are hoping to become surveyors for the Tehdees ul Bayanat (‘Project for Data Updating’).

Part of the criteria for selecting surveyors to undertake the first stage of the Data Updating Project (commencing on 16 January and concluding 15 February 2011) is their ability to use the technology correctly and efficiently.

Technological Aids
PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants or mobile palmtop computers) will be used to collect the data and workshop leader, Raheel Anwar, explained that the Fujairah Statistics Center had developed software specifically for the 2011 Data Updating Project in Fujairah.

Instead of writing down information on paper and later transferring this to a central computer, the data will be entered into the hand-held computers and transferred in seconds at the end of each day to the government department server, thus speeding up the process considerably.

Questions on PDAs
The final 30 surveyors selected for Stage 1 will be allotted part of the emirate of Fujairah, under the watchful eye of an area supervisor. For this purpose the emirate has been divided up into Main Areas (e.g. Fujairah City), Sub Areas (e.g. Faseel) and Blocks (e.g. White Village).

Surveyors were shown how they can check the Main Area, the Sub-area and the Block number on their PDA, after which a list of questions and a map of the area appears on their screen.

Stage One
During Stage 1 of the Data Updating Project surveyors will collect information solely about buildings in Fujairah.

Information will relate to such things as:
1. Whether a building is completed or not.
2. Electricity Meter Numbers
3. The number of residential units in a building.
4. The number of establishments in a building (shops, Post Offices, mosques, fitness centres, clinics, hotels, restaurants etc.)
5. The number of entrances in a building.

Survey trainees at yesterday’s workshop were given the opportunity of using the PDAs, discovering its various fields, inputting different types of required information and locking the data into the hand-held computers.

GPS
One additional feature of Stage 1 will be identifying the exact position of each building in Fujairah by Global Positioning System (GPS), which is a feature that is integrated into each PDA used by the surveyors.

This will aid the accuracy of where buildings are positioned and it will be a useful resource for town planning and the development of detailed maps in the emirate of Fujairah.

Workshop
Yesterday’s workshop in Fujairah was informative and interactive, providing lots of hands-on opportunities for trainees to display their skills and show the organizers that they are the people for the job.

Take a Look
Some pictures from yesterday’s training workshop conducted by the Fujairah Statistics Centre are included in this photo album.

Related
Fujairah Ruler Orders Census in 2011, FIF, 26 December 2010.

Geoff Pound

This article is also posted on the Fujairah in Focus Facebook Page.

Images: Workshop leader, Raheel Anwar, of the Fujairah Statistics Center, explaining how to use the PDA and software specifically developed for the Data Updating Project 2011 in Fujairah.