Overview:

Fundamentals of Field Surveys is a foundational level online course that equips the learner with the elementary knowledge and skills to start designing and implementing surveys in emergency and non-emergency contexts.

The training is recommended to national information managers, sectoral experts and other stakeholders involved in primary data collection, information analysis and needs assessments.

A self-paced version of the course is freely accessible to the public on the IFRC Learning Platform, here.

Project Background:

Assessment of an emergency and the prioritisation of the needs of affected people lays the foundation for a coherent and efficient humanitarian response. Needs assessment is essential for programme planning, monitoring&evaluation and accountability, however, it is still a critical weakness of humanitarian response.

Needs assessment in humanitarian response is as crucial as in planning organisational learning & development programs. But the stakes are much higher.

Field surveys are one of the key methods of collecting data - in rapid-response programs after an emergency, but also for creating baseline and endline assessments. With this project, we wanted to create a foundational level survey design course for the humanitarian context that can be easily accessible for anyone working in the humanitarian field.

Learning Solution:

Working closely together with Eero Sario, the SME from IFRC's IM Team, we dreamt up a course that could be launched in cohorts for RCRC members with synchronous elements, but which we could also make available for independent self-study for anyone working in the humanitarian sector.

The self-study program consists of a 7-module learning course developed in Articulate Rise. The content is delivered by presenter videos embedded in an abundance of exercises, field examples and interactive elements. Von Scham, a Hungarian graphic artist illustrated the content with joyful custom drawings, while powerful images from IFRC's vast multimedia library gave the background for the field examples. Student discussions are urged in the course forum, and for each module, we've included a downloadable summary and job aids for certain processes.

In addition to this, learners attending the RCRC cohorts will benefit from facilitated weekly sessions, synchronous exercises and group discussions, and completing the course will entitle them to attend in-person training sessions.