ESMira

ESMira is a self-hostable platform for running Experience Sampling Method (ESM, AA, EMA) longitudinal studies. It consists of a PHP-based server for study administration and native smartphone apps (Android and iOS) for participant data collection, with a focus on anonymous responses and straightforward deployment.

Key Features

• Web-based server for creating and managing studies, participants, and sampling schedules
• Native Android and iOS mobile apps for delivering prompts and collecting responses
• Anonymous participant handling so communication and data collection do not require identifiable information
• Flexible sampling schedules (time-based and event-like sampling patterns) and study configuration via the server UI
• Lightweight deployment: runs on a standard PHP-capable webserver and supports multi-language translations
• Centralized storage of collected responses suitable for export and offline analysis

Use Cases

• Academic behavioral and psychological research using ESM/EMA designs to collect in-the-moment participant data
• Health or wellness monitoring studies that require repeated, scheduled self-reports from participants
• Longitudinal data collection for social science studies where participant anonymity and simple deployment are priorities

Limitations and Considerations

• Requires a PHP-capable webserver and basic server administration for self-hosting; no turnkey managed hosting is bundled
• Focuses on data collection and study management; it does not provide advanced built-in analytics or statistical dashboards, so external analysis tools are typically required
• Feature parity and behaviour may differ slightly between the Android and iOS apps depending on platform capabilities

ESMira is designed for researchers who need a privacy-focused, minimal-dependency solution to run ESM-style studies with native mobile clients and a lightweight server component.