Tag: Software

M&E Software: A List

Well, the beginnings of a list…

PLEASE NOTE: No guarantee can be given about the accuracy of information provided on the linked websites about the M&E software concerned, and its providers. Please proceed with due caution when downloading any executable programs.

Contents on this page: Stand alone systems | Online systems | Survey supporting software | Sector specific tools | Qualitative data analysis | Data mining / Predictive Modelling | Program Logic / Theory of Change modeling | Dynamic models | Excel-based tools | Uncategorised and misc other

If you have any advice or opinions on any of the applications below, please tell us more via this survey.

Stand-alone systems

  • AidProject M+E for Donor-funded aid projects
  • Flamingo and Monitoring Organiser: “In order to implement FLAMINGO, it is crucial to first define the inputs (or resources available), activities, outputs and outcomes”
  • HIV/AIDS  Data Capturing And Reporting Platform[Monitoring and Evaluation System]
  • PacPlan: “Results-Based Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Software and Process Solution”
  • Prome Web: A project management, monitoring and evaluation software. Adapted for aid projects in developing countries
  • Sigmah: “humanitarian project management open source software”

Online systems

  • Activity Info: “an online humanitarian project monitoring tool, which helps humanitarian organizations to collect, manage, map and analyze indicators. ActivityInfo has been developed to simplify reporting and allow for real-time monitoring”
  • AKVO: “a paid-for platform that covers data collection, analysis, visualisation and reporting”
  • Canva Mind Maps: “Create a mind map with Canva and bring your thoughts to life. Easy to use, completely online and completely free mind mapping software”
  • DevResults: “web-based project management tool specially designed for the international development community.” Including M&E, mapping, budgeting, checklists, forms, and collaboration facilities.
  • Granity: “Management and reporting software for Not-for-profits Making transparency easy”
  • IndiKit: Guidance on SMART indicators for relief and development programmes
  • Kashana: An open sourced, web-based Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (MEL) product for development projects and organisations
  • Kinaki: “Kinaki is a unique and intuitive project design, data collection, analysis, reporting and sharing tool”
  • KI-PROJECTS™ MONITORING AND EVALUATION SOFTWARE:
  • Kobo Toolbox: “a free, more user-friendly way to deploy Open Data Kit surveys. It was developed with humanitarian purposes in mind, but could be used in various contexts (and not just for surveys). There is an Android data collection app that works offline”
  • Logalto:”Collaborative Web-Based Software for Monitoring and Evaluation of International Development Projects”
  • M&E Online: “Web-based monitoring and evaluation software tool”
  • Monitoring and Evaluation Online: Online Monitoring and Evaluation Software Tool
  • SmartME: “SmartME is a tried and tested comprehensive Fund Management and M&E software platform to manage funds better”
  • Systmapp: “cloud-based software that uses a patent-pending methodology to connect monitoring, planning, and knowledge management for international development organisations”
  • TolaData “is a program management and M&E platform that helps organisations create data-driven impact through the adaptive and timely management of projects”
  • WebMo: Web-based project monitoring for development cooperation

Survey supporting software

  • CommCare: a mobile data collection platform.
  • EthnoCorder is mobile multimedia survey software for your iPhone
  • HarvestYourData: iPad & Android Survey App for Mobile Offline Data Collection
  • KoBoToolbox is a suite of tools for field data collection for use in challenging environments. Free and open source
  • Magpi (formerly EpiSurvey)  – provides tools for mobile data collection, messaging and visualisation, lets anyone create an account, design forms, download them to phones, and start collecting data in minutes, for free.
  • Open Data Kit (ODK) is a free and open-source set of tools which help organizations author, field, and manage mobile data collection solution
  • REDCap,a secure web application for building and managing online surveys and databases… specifically geared to support online or offline data capture for research studies and operations
  • Sensemaker(c) “links micro-narratives with human sense-making to create advanced decision support, research and monitoring capability in both large and small organisations.”
  • Comparisons

Sector-specific tools

  • Mwater for WASH, which explicitly aims to make the data (in this case water quality). Free and open source
  • Adaptive Management Software for Conservation projects. https://www.miradi.org/

Qualitative data analysis

  • Dedooose, A cross-platform app for analyzing qualitative and mixed methods research with text, photos, audio, videos, spreadsheet data and more
  • Nvivo, powerful software for qualitative data analysis.
  • HyperRESEARCH “…gives you complete access and control, with keyword coding, mind-mapping tools, theory building and much more”.
  • Impact Mapper: “A new online software tool to track trends in stories and data related to social change”

Data mining / predictive modeling

  • RapidMiner Studio. Free and paid for versions. Data Access (Connect to any data source, any format, at any scale), Data Exploration (Quickly discover patterns or data quality issues). Data Blending (Create the optimal data set for predictive analysis), Data Cleansing (Expertly cleanse data for advanced algorithms), Modeling (Efficiently build and delivers better models faster), Validation (Confidently & accurately estimate model performance)
  • BigML. Free and paid for versions. Online service. “Machine learning made easy”
  • EvalC3: Tools for exploring and evaluating complex causal configurations, developed by Rick Davies (Editor of MandE NEWS). Free and available with Skype video support

Program Logic / Theory of Change modeling / Diagramming

  • Changeroo: “Changeroo assists organisations, programs and projects with a social mission to develop and manage high-quality Theories of Change”
  • Coggle:The clear way to share complex information
  • DAGitty: ” a browser-based environment for creating, editing, and analyzing causal models (also known as directed acyclic graphs or causal Bayesian networks)”
  • Decision Explorer: a  tool for managing “soft” issues – the qualitative information that surrounds complex or uncertain situations.
  • DCED’s Evidence Framework – more a way of using a website than software as such, but definitely an approach that is replicable by others.
  • DoView – Visual outcomes and results planning
  • Draw.io:
  • Dylomo: ” a free* web-based tool that you can use to build and present program logic models that you can interact with”
  • IdeaTree – Simultaneous Collaboration & Brainstorming Using Mind Maps
  • Insight Maker: “…express your thoughts using rich pictures and causal loop diagrams. … turn these diagrams into powerful simulation models.”
  • Kumu: a powerful data visualization platform that helps you organize complex information into interactive relationship maps.
  • Logframer 1.0 “a free project management application for projects based on the logical framework method”
  • LucidChart: Diagrams done right. Diagram and collaborate anytime on any device
  • Netway: a cyberinfrastructure designed to support collaboration on the development of program models and evaluation plans, provide connection to a virtual community of related programs, outcomes, measures and practitioners, and to provide quick access to resources on evaluation planning
  • Omnigraffle: for creating precise, beautiful graphics: website wireframes, electrical systems, family trees and maps of software classes
  • Theory maker: a free web app by Steve Powell for making any kind of causal diagram, i.e. a diagram which uses arrows to say what contributes to what.
  • TOCO – Theory of Change Online. A free version is available.
  • Visual Understanding Environment (VUE): open source ‘mind mapping’ freeware from Tufts Univ.
  • yEd – diagram editor that can be used to generate drawings of diagrams.  FREE. PS: There is now a web-based version of this excellent network drawing application

Dynamic models

  • CCTools: Map and steer complex systems, using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps and others [ This site is currently under reconstruction]
  • Loopy: A tool for thinking in systems
  • Mental Modeller: FCM modeling software that helps individuals and communities capture their knowledge in a standardized format that can be used for scenario analysis.
  • FCM Expert: Experimenting tools for Fuzzy Cognitive Maps
  • FCMapper: the first available FCM analysis tool based on MS Excel and FREE for non-commercial use.
  • FSDM: Fuzzy Systems Dynamics Model Implemented with a Graphical User Interface

Mind-Mapping software (tree diagrams)

  • MindView: “a professional mind mapping software that allows you to visually brainstorm, organize and present ideas.”
  • XMind: “mind mapping and brainstorming tool, designed to generate ideas, inspire creativity, brings you efficiency both in work and life.”
  • MindManager: “
  • Plectica: “Diagram your thinking in real time, together”

Collaboration software

  • Miro:  which can be used to make a collaborative ToC.

Excel-based tools

  • EvalC3: …tools for developing, exploring and evaluating predictive models of expected outcomes, developed by Rick Davies (Editor of MandE NEWS). Free and available with Skype video support

Uncategorised yet

  • OpenRefine: Formerly called Google Refine is a powerful tool for working with messy data: cleaning it; transforming it from one format into another; and extending it with web services and external data.
  • “Overview is an open-source tool originally designed to help journalists find stories in large numbers of documents, by automatically sorting them according to topic and providing a fast visualization and reading interface. It’s also used for qualitative research, social media conversation analysis, legal document review, digital humanities, and more. Overview does at least three things really well.
Other lists
Other other

Miradi – adaptive management software for conservation projects

(Referred to by Richard Margoluis, on Mande NEWS email list, 8 May 2008)

Miradi – a Swahili word meaning “project” or “goal” – is a user-friendly program that allows nature conservation practitioners to design, manage, monitor, and learn from their projects to more effectively meet their conservation goals. The program guides users through a series of step-by-step interview wizards, based on the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation. As practitioners go through these steps, Miradi helps them to define their project scope, and design conceptual models and spatial maps of their project site. The software helps teams to prioritize threats, develop objectives and actions, and select monitoring indicators to assess the effectiveness of their strategies. Miradi also supports the development of workplans, budgets, and other tools to help practitioners implement and manage their project. Users can export Miradi project data to donor reports or, in the future, to a central database to share their information with other practitioners.

AidProject M+E software

Comprehensive & straightforward Monitoring & Evaluation software for Donor-funded aid projects.

AidProject M+E empowers projects to employ good practice & satisfy Donor requirements. Using AidProject M+E is relatively straightforward:

  1. Define Lookup Trees & Branches to customise AidProject M+E for your project. These include LogFrame, Methods, Purposes, Gatherers, Monitors, etc.

  2. Define Performance Indicators together with their Locations & Periods. Attach additional criteria (your customised Trees & Branches) for reporting & analysis.

  3. Maintain Period targets & actual performance data (dates, text, money, yield, etc.).

  4. Distribute performance reports to Monitors (Donors, Government, Project Management, Stakeholders, etc.) & export spreadsheets to assist Gatherers.

A licence to use AidProject M+E is absolutely free.

VisuaLyzer software: for visualising and analysing networks

There are now many different software packages available that can be used to visually represent networks, and to generate many different statistical measures of their structure. Unfortunately many of these involve a steep learning curve, and involve far more bells and whistles than I need.  VisuaLyzer is my favourite software package because it is very user friendly, and easy to use.

VisuaLyzer is produced by mdlogix, USA. You can download a trial version or buy a copy from this part of their website. For more information contact Allen Tien <allen@mdlogix.com> at mdlogix. If you do contact him, please mention you heard about Visualyser on Rick Davies’s website, MandE NEWS.

My main use of Visualyzer is to draw the organisational networks I am working with, in the course of my work as an M&E consultant on development aid programmes. These are of two types: (a) literal descriptions (maps) of the relationships as known, (b) simplified models of complex networks showing the main types of organisations and the relationships between them. Less frequently, I also import data from Excel to automatically generate network maps. This data usually comes from project documents or online surveys. I also use the combination of UCINET and Netdraw for this task.

Here is an example of a network that I drew by hand directly on screen. It represents the relationships between AMREF’s partners in the Katine project, Uganda. Click on the image to expand it a new window, then click again to get a focused image. You can represent different types of actors by varying the colour, size and shape of nodes. You can represent the different kinds of relationships between them by varying the kind of line used, its colour and thickness. If you click on a node you can enter detailed text or numerical data describing the actor’s attributes, using as many fields as needed. If you click on any link you can enter data about the attributes of that relationships. Both of these sets of data can be exported, on all actors and relationships, as an Excel file.  You can also import the same kind of data, to automatically generate a network diagram.

mdlogix describe it as “an interactive tool for entering, visualizing and analyzing network data. You can create nodes and links directly or import network data from edgelist/edgearray, Excel, or GraphML formats. Once the network is displayed, you can customize visual properties such as the colour, shape, size, and location of nodes and links to create an informative graphic representation. Images of your choice may be used to represent nodes. XY mapping of nodes as a function of node attributes is supported in layered layout. It also provides a number of analysis functions for calculating network and nodal level indices, and for finding sub-groups, partitions, communities, and roles and positions. In addition, VisuaLyzer includes powerful logic programming capabilities that allow you to investigate networks using axioms of classical set theory.”

This all sounds quite complex. But in practice it is the simplest features of Visualyzer which are the most useful. It does have a very good and easy to read Users Guide (5mb), which you may want to look at.

For more on the development of network models / descriptions and their use in monitoring and evaluation go to the Network Models section of this website.

POSTSCRIPT (1st December 2008): See also Overview of Common Social Network Analysis Software Platforms “This report was developed by the Philanthropy and Networks Exploration, a partnership between the Packard Foundation and Monitor Institute. The exploration is an inquiry into how networks can facilitate greater philanthropic effectiveness. For more information, please go to http://www.philanthropyandnetworks.org ”

PS2 (16th January 2009): The link to the “Overview …” doc no longer works. I have now uploaded the doc HERE, after receiving a copy via the Pakard Foundation. They also sent a link to: “Working Wikily: How networks are changing social change“

%d bloggers like this: