A fairly old but usable (on old palm devices) is the ESP by Berrett & Feldman Berrett. Another, for Win7 phones is the MyExperience. Unfortunately I think the development stopped at some point, even if they're functional. I hope someone else will update the list with new (android and iphone) tools. Links for the mentioned two are attached.

Cheers,

Marko

http://www.experience-sampling.org/

http://myexperience.sourceforge.net/

Thanks Marko.

I am afraid neither Win7 or palm is popular enough.

Searching online I found some apps for android:

http://emotionsense.org/

http://beepme.glanznig.com/

https://xs.movisens.com/ (not free)

I am wondering if anyone used any of these before and what was your assessment of it (pros, cons, problems, etc). Any other apps that you have used in the past?

I tried emotionsense (just installed it on my phone) but I got the idea that that you cannot easily download data from your research group and that the app is created mainly for the research team involved in this. To bad.

Here is the link to the platform I developed:

https://metricwire.com/

Support for iOS 7.0+ and Android 4.0 devices.

Hi

Please see: cedu.niu.edu/scienceinthemoment/about/esm.shtml

George - 

Don't forget that collecting the data is one thing, but it is very important to first plan your survey design so that you can make inferences when you are done. 

Cheers - Jim 

Hi

Just saw your question. Letting you know about the PIEL survey app. It is free and can be used offline to collect ESM data on idevices

PIEL Survey: a free, easy to use and accessible Experience Sampling Method app

I am part of team that has recently released a new user-friendly system for creating and distributing experience sampling protocols through our native Android and iOS mobile apps.  It allows you to easily create, modify and distribute multiple experience sampling protocols throughout the year with an affordable subscription.  It also allows you to download your data as a .csv file and visualize it using a graphical dashboard.  Please contact me if you have any questions or go to lifedatacorp.com.  

lifedatacorp.com

We have planned the release of an open source package called Survalytics which may be used for experience sampling in the Android OS.  It is currently in open peer-review:

http://mhealth.jmir.org/reviewer/openReview/abstracts

This post will be edited when there are updates on the review.

Guys, how much you charge for your applications is just crazy!!! Sorry, I had to say it ;))) Good luck with your business.

Griffith University just launched iExperience with available on iTuens:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/iexperience/id1041319025?mt=8

and on Google Play:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appfactory.surveysatgriffith

You can contact me directly if you're interested in using iExperience for your own study.

You might also want to check out www.cloud-solutions.net

We provide solutions for intensive longitudinal designs, experience sampling designs, network-analysis and combinations of these designs.

A little late now George I am guessing - but I'd definitely recommend using PSYT (Psychological Technologies) a UK based company that specialises in ESM real-time collection for psychology research.

http://www.psyt.co.uk/research

I use ESmCapture (www.esmcapture.com) for all our ecological momentary assessment work. You can use an app version on any iOS device, or the web app version that works on any platform or computer. It makes survey creation and deployment simple. And the cost is reasonable, $99 for 29 or fewer participants, $249 for 99 or fewer participants, and $999 for an unlimited number of participants. All licenses can be added too and are good for a year. 

Dear Colleagues -

Please try out Expimetrics (www.expimetrics.com). As an ESM/EMA researcher myself, I have tried to create a simple but powerful platform for researchers. 

Mechanics

On the web, researchers create different surveys within a project and can schedule these different surveys.

Each project has a unique access code.

Projects are administered to participants via our mobile apps which are free for participants to download and use. Participants enter the access code to start your project

Strengths

1. Flexible scheduling: Use Calendar Dates, or use Days whenever participants start a survey (automatically individualized to participant start dates). Basically, researchers can do signal-contingent, time-contingent, and event-based scheduling.

2. Scheduling surveys but also enabling event-contingent or one-time surveys within a project (e.g., demographic questionnaire). Researchers can create mixed schedule projects very easily.

3. Automatic linking of surveys for a single respondent in the data download. There is no need for researcher assigned ID and manually linking surveys. 

4. All surveys are scheduled and delivered based on participant time zones. A 9am survey will be 9am for a participant regardless of where they are at. This enables data collection across a wide variety of locations.

5. Real-time tracking of participant response rates and messaging of participants, particularly to follow-up on low response rate participants.

6. Mobile apps are available in both iOS and Android for free.

7. No need to obtain participant cell phone information etc. Just have participants download apps to their phone and enter the access code for your project. 

8. Collect unique data like video, voice, pictures, and location information from participants.

9. For a yearly license, researchers can conduct as many ESM/EMA projects as they want. There is no charge for app notifications (i.e., signals to participants) and it is all inclusive.

10. We have a growing knowledge base for easy use of the platform.

COMING SOON: direct payments to participants via mobile apps, survey previews, etc.

Hope you can try it out. The basic features of survey creation are free and participants can take surveys that do not have a specific schedule. We collaborate with researchers to build functionalities to provide cutting-edge data collection.

The more feedback we receive, the better we can serve the research community.

Thank you,

Louis

www.expimetrics.com

For those who want an Experience Sampling Methodology (or Ecological Momentary Assessment) survey app, without having to subscribe to a third party server service, we have just released a new version of the PIEL Survey in the Apple store. https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/piel-survey/id1257313392?mt=8

It is provided free as a service to the research community.

Note that no third party server required, simplifying security and confidentiality concerns.

- The surveys are created with a text file by the researcher.

- The data file is a "csv" file and can be opened in spreadsheet software.

- The survey and data files can be emailed or exchanged using iTunes' file sharing.

- Notifications are sent from the participant's device, in their own time zone, not sent from a remote server.

Once the app is downloaded, you can run a study without ever being connected to the internet if you wish to use file sharing in iTunes. However, you may find it more convenient to email the survey and data files.

The surveys can be event contingent or scheduled. Schedules can be fixed, random or a mixture of both. There are 4 question types (we plan on adding to these) and answers are timestamped. List questions allow for branching to different questions depending on the response. Time limits can be set on opening the survey and answering the survey.

You can put participant IDs in the Survey file but if not, the participant can enter their ID.

More information can be found at: https://pielsurvey.org/

I want to run an Experience Sampling for collecting data for my PHD thesis. It is concerned with experience with mobile applications. I plan to ask questions from app users when they stop using the app. Is there any application that understand that users stop using another app and after their experience with another app signal them and ask them to answer to some question by sending them pop-up message?

Hi Mona,

Ethica does support capturing application usage statistics both on Android and iPhone. You can design studies that continuously captures app usage statistics, and then use that information to trigger contextual surveys.

(Disclaimer: I developed this feature)

Hope it helps

I can recommend MovisensXS as we used this to program both EMA and EMI surveys to use within a blended therapy. The app is visually simplistic however is reliable and simple to program once you get the hang of it. I cannot recommend Lifedata - we used this in a pilot study and it crashed frequently and did not upload data consistently. I also read a recent paper which used it and reported a similar problem. They did not provide us with a refund (license cost $5000) and were unable to provide fixes to the problem within a timely manner (continued for about 2 months).

I can agree with @Imogen Bell, that MovisensXS can be well recommended for EMA/ESM from own experience, experience by research partners and seeing presentations from other users at congresses. It's a flexible platform and the pricing structure seems fair and is scalable. I also got good support.

I've tested a few of the software recommended here but I'm finding it hard to find one with the more than just simple functionality that supports both iOS and Android. The following is my experience having tested these software. I am aware these software are being developed all the time and improved, and I mean no disrespect, this is simply feedback from my experience:

MovisensXS - Android only (a nice software, but limited to Android only)

PIEL - iOS only (a nice software, but limited to iOS only)

ESM Capture - iOS only (a nice software, but limited to iOS only)

PSYT - Still waiting to hear back from them, I cannot comment further

Instant Survey - Lacks functionality (e.g., cannot erase questions)

Expimetrics - Supports both operating systems, but lacks functionality (e.g., testing, removing responses, data not anonymized unless the survey is static)

I am looking for both iOS and Android support, ability to send push notifications, logic, anonymous, and of course testable.

Does such a thing exist right now on the market?

I believe Ilumivu is available on iOS and Android. Lifedata as well, but I can't personally recommend them due to the above issues we had.

My lab has been struggling to get ExperienceSampler working - we are on the last step - but can't get the notifications working. The free aspect of this was very appealing to me in terms of sustaining work for my graduate student dissertation and theses. Does anyone have a better experience getting this going? Thanks.

You can try out Jeeves. It is a new platform that allow you to make your app simply with a visual interface. No coding expertise is necessary. Then participants can access the app by downloading JeevesAndroid on the play store and access to your study using a code. It's totally free. It's still a bit under development but I'm sure it will work well for simple designs. For me, I had many precise requests for our study, and Daniel (the developper) was quite helpful to make it work.

https://jeeves.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/

Christopher,

You have clearly done a lot of work looking at options. You mentioned the PIEL Survey app which I noted since I was involved in its development.

You posted this 2 months ago and that was correct at the time. However, I am pleased to let you know that an Android version was released a week ago into the Google Play Store. Both iOS and Android versions are free.

Please see the PIEL Survey website for more information. https://pielsurvey.org/

Glenda Jessup,

I would love to hear a little more about pielsurvey. I have been looking at it, and think it might suit the needs of a study I'm currently designing. It is a large-scale cohort study of affective patients in secondary care treatment. How do you retrieve the data? Do all participants have to come to the clinic to 'deliver' their data? It sounds like a lot of work to aggregate the data... And are the data encrypted on the participants' phones?

Best, Kim

Hello Kim, answers as follows. These come from the website. https://pielsurvey.org

How do you retrieve the data? : The data is retrieved either by email or file sharing.

https://pielsurvey.org/instructions/export-results/

Do all participants have to come to the clinic to 'deliver' their data? : They would only need to come to the clinic if you use file sharing.

It sounds like a lot of work to aggregate the data :The data is exported as a “.csv” file. You can directly open it in an spreadsheet program. We also have an Excel macro which can combine many data files in one go.

https://pielsurvey.org/instructions/data-handling/

And are the data encrypted on the participants' phones? :The app relies on the operating system encryption. On Apple devices, the app uses the highest level of encryption within the Apple operating system. On Android, the user must enable encryption. This encryption occurs when the phone is locked. We recommend TLS or SSL email (usually the default) so the

data is encrypted in transit.

Glenda Jessup Thanks!

Does anyone know where I can look the prices (for the liscenses) up? The websites are quite intansparent in this point.

Samira, the PIEL survey app is free to download and use. You will need to follow the instructions on the website https://pielsurvey.org to tailor it to your research needs

Thank you Glenda!

Hi all, in addition, PACO (https://pacoapp.com/) is another experience sampling software and app that is available free to download on both Android and iOS stores. I'm yet to run a study with it so cannot comment on it's functionality however looks to be quite user friendly.

Hi All - you might want to consider ExpiWell (www.expiwell.com). I founded the company in 2015 after trying out many platforms. There are now more than 2,000 researchers around the world using the platform for Experience Sampling. Participants can take the surveys and enter text, video, voice data etc. via iOS or Android apps. Designing and scheduling is also simple as we enable a calendar functionality and all the surveys take place in the participant time zone. Hope this helps!