Creating a project in ClimMob
Sofia Acuna, Marylin Manrow
Get started with ClimMob: learn what it is, create your account, and set up your first project.
Introducing ClimMob: A software platform for experimental citizen science in agriculture.
ClimMob supports tricot trial implementers in evaluating technology options across diverse contexts with a one-platform solution to design, manage, and share experiments. It helps implementers plan and monitor processes while ensuring that relevant outputs reach researchers, field agents, and trial participants at the right time. This enables effective trial operations and agile, data-based decisions, underpinned by an excellent user experience.
ClimMob is a free, open-source, online platform for participatory testing projects. It guides users through all stages of their tricot projects: from project design and generation of randomized test packages, to efficient data collection, automated analysis, and reporting.
● Current version: ClimMob 3.
● Data collection: via the Android app ODK Collect.
● Analysis: uses the R package ClimMobTools.
Requirements: An Android smartphone or tablet for field data collection
Why ClimMob?
Participatory testing in agriculture can be complex, involving multiple actors—such as project implementers, field agents, and farmers—often across different regions or countries. These projects generate large volumes of data that must be organized, validated, and analyzed.
ClimMob was custom-built to streamline this complexity by supporting:
● Project design and planning.
● Generation of randomized test packages.
● Efficient data collection and storage.
● Monitoring of data and project progress.
● Automated data analysis and reporting.
By simplifying all stages of the workflow, ClimMob makes tricot projects more manageable, scalable, and successful.
Software architecture and design principles
a. Design philosophy
ClimMob’s architecture was shaped by the need for a feasible and project-owner-oriented workflow, while also addressing the requirements of breeders, researchers, and field agents. The platform is designed primarily for scientists and project coordinators who lead participatory trials, ensuring they can manage projects efficiently while keeping outputs relevant for farmers and decision-makers. The software and workflow were developed in parallel to ensure technical coherence, usability, and alignment with real-world project management needs.
b. Component-based engineering
ClimMob is built using Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE). This allows for a flexible and modular platform that is easy to update and maintain.
c. Open-source foundation
ClimMob is based on robust, widely adopted open-source components, including:
● Open Data Kit (ODK).
● ODK Tools.
● PyUtilib Component Architecture.
All data analysis is conducted through R packages, particularly the ClimMobTools package, ensuring reproducibility and transparency.
User-centered development
From the beginning, ClimMob has followed an iterative and user-centered development process, marked by:
● Ongoing feedback from users
● Short communication loops between developers and field teams
● Continuous improvements based on real-world use
This has resulted in a platform that adapts to the evolving needs of agricultural innovation projects.
Who uses ClimMob—and How?
ClimMob was built to support a range of users within participatory testing projects:
a. Implementers (project leaders)
They benefit from tools for project setup, assigning field agents, and managing test packages. ClimMob also offers automatic statistical reports, enabling data-informed decision-making.
b. Field Agents
They register participants and collect data using the ODK Collect app. This ensures data entry is quick, efficient, and synchronized with ClimMob.
c. Testers (farmers or participants)
They receive their test results soon after data submission. This rapid feedback helps them learn from peers and adopt the most promising technologies.
What’s next for ClimMob?
Ongoing development of ClimMob focuses on:
● Improving user experience (UI/UX).
● Expanding data types and media (e.g. audio, photos, sensor data).
● Enhancing integration with other platforms.
● Strengthening support for data-driven agricultural decision-making.
Create a ClimMob account
Create your personal account on ClimMob. If you have already registered an account, you can log in straight away.
How-to:
Visit the ClimMob online software.
On the left upper corner, click on Login or register an account.
If you already have an account, enter your username and password and click on Login (green button).
If you don't have an account, click on Create an account (white button) which you will find under Login.
-
Fill in all the requested fields:
a. Full name: your name and surname
b. Email: your email
c. Organization: the organization you are working for, e.g. Alliance Bioversity – CIAT
d. Country: select your country from the drop-down menu
e. Sector: select the type of sector you are working for from the drop-down menu
f. Username: the name you will use to enter the ClimMob dashboard
g. Password: the password you will use to enter the ClimMob dashboard
h. Retype password: retype the password you have entered above
i. Agree with our Terms of service and our Privacy Policy
j. Finally, click on register and your account will be set
Video tutorial of the explanation on how to create your ClimMob account.
Get familiar with ClimMob
When users log into ClimMob for the first time, they are welcomed with a guided setup designed to help them configure the platform before creating their first project. This workflow ensures that key components are defined early, streamlining future project setup.
Navigate the main menu
The main menu is located on the left side of the screen and gives access to key areas of the platform, including your projects, library items, and tools.
Here is the order in which these onboarding messages appear:
Libraries
Libraries are centralized repositories for elements that will be reused in multiple projects, such as agents, technologies, and questions.
● Field agents: are the individuals responsible for registering farmers and collecting data in the field. You’ll define them once and assign them across multiple projects.
● Technologies: are the options that farmers will evaluate—for example, different seed varieties, soil treatments, or planting methods. These are stored in the library for future use.
● Questions: ClimMob provides a rich library of premade evaluation questions developed by the 1000FARMS team, available in multiple languages and ready to use across projects. This library helps ensure consistency and comparability in data collection. In addition, you can also define your own custom questions—such as “Which variety grew fastest?” or “Which option tasted better?”—which will then be stored and reused in future projects.
Downloads
This menu option gives access to tools and resources needed for field implementation, including:
● Field data collection templates
● Survey forms
● ClimMob documentation
● R analysis tools
Setting up a new project
1. Create a new project
To start working with ClimMob, your first step is to create a new project. You can do this in two ways: either by going to the Project overview section and clicking Create a new project, or by navigating to All projects and selecting Add new project. In both cases, you will be asked to complete a short form with the main project details. Once created, you can always return later to update or adjust the project settings. To set up a profile for your tricot project.
Fields to fill:
-
General information
● Project name: Unique and more descriptive name for the project. We recommend including the technology, the year or time, and the location, to distinguish the project from others, when you manage multiple projects. For example: Bean_Honduras_2019_season1
● Project ID: Short, unique identifier of the project. For example, your initials and year of the project: JV19.
● Description: Add more detail about the project.
● Keywords: To make your project searchable, enter up to X keywords that define your project. Examples: “bean”, “Honduras”.
● Trial coordinator: Your full name, start with your first name, all names separated by a space. By default, it is already filled with your data. Change if the trial coordinator is someone else.
● Email address: Your email address.
● Affiliation: Select one or create a new affiliation, if any of the options applies to your organization.
-
Geographic information
● Select the country where the project will take place
-
Participants
● Number of participants: Enter how many participants will join this project. For example: 200. If you don’t know the exact number yet, better choose a number too high than too low (but still reasonable, as otherwise ClimMob will do a lot of unnecessary computing later on).
-
Technology options labels
● Number of technology options each participant compares: By default, this is set to ‘3’ and cannot be changed. It’s a reminder that in a tricot project, every participant will receive 3 technology options to compare.
● Name given to the 3 items that each participant compares: by default the names are “Option A, Option B and Option C” but the trial coordinator could decide to change them for something else that participants can relate to better, such as numbers, colors or shapes.
-
Project type
● You can indicate whether the project is a training project. This means the project was created for educational purposes—such as practice, demonstrations, or coursework—and not intended for actual data collection in the field.
● There are three options for experimental site: on-farm testing, home, or public space (e.g., market). Depending on the experimental site selected, you will need to choose between different units of analysis and corresponding objectives (see examples in box below).
● Do you want to create your project from a template? Select if it applies to your project.
● Finally, you can select up to four languages in which the participant forms will be provided, allowing multilingual data collection as needed.
2. Assign field agents
In this section, you can add the field agents who will work on this particular project. Field agents are your extension workers in the field who will communicate with the participants and later collect all trial observations using the ODK Collect app.
-
On the project overview section, click on Assign field agents.
-
If the fields agents you want to work with are already on the left list, just select the ones you would like to work with in this project.
-
If you would like to add new field agents, click on +add new field agent. This will redirect you to the library of field agents, where you can add the information about a new field agent.
*Note that the field password and username are necessary for ODK Collect.
Video tutorials
Add field agents to your library
Assigning field agents to your ClimMob project
Project Setup - Field agents and Technology options
3. Select technology options
In this section, you can specify the technology options you want to compare in your tricot experiment. We recommend you select a pool of 7 to 20 technology options.
For example, if you want to test which bean variety of a pool of 7 to 20 bean varieties is best adapted to the region you are running your tricot experiment in, you would add the names of all bean varieties here. If you want to include 7 bean varieties in the experiment, or 20, or anything in between, depends on the experiment you have in mind.
If you want to test which fertilizer regime of a pool of 10 to 20 different fertilizer regimes makes crops grow best, you would add the names of these 10 to 20 fertilizer regimes here.
How-to:
-
On the project overview section click on green button, Select technology options.
-
You will access the list of available technologies in the platform. If the technology you are interested in is there, just click on it and access the different options (e.g. varieties).
-
If the technology you are interested in is not there, click on + add new technology. This action will redirect you to the library, where you can create new technologies.
Video tutorials
Assigning technology options to your ClimMob project
Project Setup - Field agents and Technology options
Filling the ClimMob library with new technologies (e.g. varieties) to test in the tricot trials:
4. Prepare participant registration form
In this section, you can add and manage the administrative questions that field agents will ask participants during registration at the start of the project. These questions are important for two main reasons:
● Administrative purposes: to keep a clear record of who is participating, where they live, and other key details that help organize and monitor the trial.
● Data analysis purposes: to allow deeper insights, for example, checking whether younger participants adopt a technology faster, or whether female participants show a preference for certain options. Once you have defined the list of questions, they will be available through the ODK Collect app. Field agents can then enter participant information directly into the app during registration.
How-to:
-
On the project definition section, click Prepare participant registration form.
-
Drag the questions you want to include from the left panel (available questions from the library) into the middle panel (assessment form). A preview of the selected questions will appear on the right panel (preview)—scroll down to see all of them.
-
If the question you want is not available in the library, click Add new question and create it under the most relevant section.
-
The ClimMob library already includes a list of commonly used questions, which you can easily add to the registration form.
Video tutorials
Learn in the following video how to prepare the participant registration form and set up the randomization for the ClimMob project.
Project setup - Registration form and Technology randomization
Learn how to add new questions to the library
Library - Add Project Questions
5. Prepare data collection form
In this section, you define the different data collection moments for the on-farm evaluation that participants will carry out. At each moment, specific questions will be asked to capture observations. It is important to decide:
● Which traits will be evaluated in the selected technology options?
● When will each trait be evaluated during the planting cycle?
Once set up, these data collection forms will guide field agents and participants during the evaluation process.
How-to:
-
On the project definition section, click Prepare data collection. Here you can add the different data collection moments throughout the planting cycle.
-
After adding the data collection moments, go to the right panel (Active data collection moments) and click Show to view them.
-
For each data collection moment, drag the desired questions from the left panel (available questions from the library) into the middle panel (assessment form). A preview of the selected questions will appear on the right panel (preview)—scroll down to view all questions.
-
If the question you need is not in the library, click Add new question and create it under the most relevant section.
Video tutorials
Learn more in detail about the process of preparing data collection in the following video:
Project setup - Data collection survey, part 1
Project setup - Data collection survey, part 2
14. Project overview
The Project overview is the starting point of any ClimMob project. It guides you through the essential steps required to set up, manage, and share your research trial. Each section builds on the previous one, ensuring that your project is well-structured and ready for implementation.
Project profile: define the basic details of your project. Here you set up the project title, description, objectives, and key identifiers that will allow others to understand its purpose at a glance.
Assign field agents: select the team members or collaborators who will collect data in the field. Assigning field agents ensures that responsibilities are clear, and data collection is organized.
Assign technologies: choose the agricultural technologies or practices that will be tested in your trial. These could include new crop varieties, fertilizers, or management techniques.
Prepare participant registration form: design the form that will be used to register farmers or participants in your project. This form collects key demographic and contextual information, making it possible to analyze results across different participant groups.
Prepare trial data collection: set up the data collection forms that participants or field agents will use during the trial. These forms capture observations, feedback, and results, ensuring standardized and comparable data.
Trial documentation: upload or create documentation related to your trial, such as protocols, manuals, or additional reference material. This helps maintain transparency and ensures that all collaborators follow the same procedures.
Share project with other users: Invite colleagues, partners, or stakeholders to view or collaborate on your project. Sharing increases transparency, improves teamwork, and allows for broader use of the collected data.