Communication Sampling Package

carp_communication_package adds the phone's call log, its text messages (SMS) and its calendar events to a CARP Mobile Sensing (CAMS) study. Use it in studies of social behavior and daily routines, such as how often a participant calls, texts or has appointments.

Calls and text messages come from Android only, because iOS gives apps no access to them. Calendar events come from Android and iOS. The package reads the call log with the call_e_log plugin, text messages with another_telephony and calendars with device_calendar_plus.

Features

Measure types

dk.cachet.carp.textmessage is event-based; the other three are one-time measures that collect once each time their task is triggered. For the difference, see Event-based and one-time measures.

Requirements

How it works

Adding the package to a study takes three steps:

1. Register the package

   Registering CommunicationSamplingPackage makes the four measure types known to CAMS and adds their privacy transformers to the default privacy schema.

2. Add the measures to a protocol

   The measures run on the phone, the protocol's primary device. Trigger the one-time measures repeatedly, for example every few hours.

3. Deploy the protocol

   CAMS asks the participant for the phone, SMS and calendar permissions that the measures need, and then collects data each time a trigger fires.

This protocol collects the calendar every 3 hours and hashes event titles and descriptions:

CarpMobileSensing.ensureInitialized();
SamplingPackageRegistry().register(CommunicationSamplingPackage());

final protocol = SmartphoneStudyProtocol(
  ownerId: 'owner@example.com',
  name: 'Calendar events',
  dataEndPoint: SQLiteDataEndPoint(),
  privacySchemaName: PrivacySchema.DEFAULT,
);
final phone = Smartphone();
protocol.addPrimaryDevice(phone);

protocol.addTaskControl(
  PeriodicTrigger(period: const Duration(hours: 3)),
  BackgroundTask(
    measures: [Measure(type: CommunicationSamplingPackage.CALENDAR)],
  ),
  phone,
);

Next steps