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Click-start Guide:

QSR NVivo version 2

Guide Version 5 Nov 2005

Patsy Clarke - ITEd - University of KwaZulu-Natal - [email protected]

© 1998 - 2005

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Click-start Guide to QSR NVivo

Contents of the Click-start Guide to NVivo

Contents of the Click-start Guide to NVivo ................................................1 Guide objectives .........................................................................................2 Suggestion...................................................................................................2 Step 1: Create an NVivo Project..................................................................3 Step 2: Explore the NVivo interface............................................................3 Step 3: Create documents ...........................................................................4 Step 4: Save your project ............................................................................5 Step 5: Back up your project.......................................................................5 Step 6: Browse your documents .................................................................6 Step 7: Create nodes – from prior ideas/theories ‘down’ ...........................7 Step 8: Add coding to existing nodes .........................................................8 Step 9: Add nodes and coding from the ‘data up’ ......................................9 Step 10: Import attributes & create new ones...........................................10

Step 11: Link documents/text/nodes/external files/ media......................11 Step 12: Searches ......................................................................................12 Step 13: Shape your data with sets ...........................................................13 Step 14: Reports and Profiles ..................................................................14 Step 15: Query your data .........................................................................15 Step 16: Model your research ...................................................................20 Step 17: What next? ..................................................................................22 Appendix 1: More about NVivo project file structures…….…………………………23 Appendix 2: N.B. How to Backup your project file…………….……..……...…….. 26 Appendix 3: Batch Auto-code by section…………………..…………………………27 Appendix 4: Assign/apply existing Attributes to documents………..………………. 28

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Guide objectives QSR NVivo1 software provides a variety of methods for each specific procedure. This ‘Click-start’ guide is intended to present a possible step-by-step approach to get new users up and running with a new project. The guide can be used with any documents of data ready for use with the software. Many documents referred to in the guide are from the NVivo tutorial projects Get on! Stage 1 (based on the project Get on with living - A study of community services for people with spinal injuries (in which you can set up a project from scratch) and Stage 2 (where you can see the later results of the project as coded and analysed by the original researcher). You can improve your knowledge of the software through use of this guide, the on-line help - also from F1 anywhere in NVivo - and the tutorial projects inside the demo and full versions of the software from which this guide material has been extracted. In addition, for a comprehensive overview of how NVivo supports qualitative research consult the online booklet Introducing NVivo – a workshop handbook by Lyn Richards of QSR.

Useful help resources for NVivo

o Useful web-based information and downloadable material - including the handbook referred to earlier, and demo versions of the software link to: http://innerweb.und.ac.za/depts/itd/ac/pc/qda/n4.html (for UKZN only) or http://www.und.ac.za/users/clarke/support/index.html#qsr

o For information about joining helpful email discussion forums for qualitative

researchers or other QSR software users, check the links to this at http://www.qsrinternational.com

This information can also be accessed by UKZN staff and students via the ITEd web site at: http://ited.nu.ac.za. Link to Resources then Data Analysis Software Support and then look for the NVivo logo. The Click-start Guide to NVivo that you are currently reading can be downloaded from : the InnerwebSoftware Library http://softwarerep.ukzn.ac.za. NVivo resources are in the NVivo submenu ofthe Academic Software menu. (Login with your network login (nameonly and password).

Suggestions for optimal NVivo use Keep open only those screens that are required for each procedure so as not to exhaust the memory capacity of your computer system. If you obtain error messages or the system no longer responds, close down NVivo, and restart/reboot your computer from scratch to clear the memory. It is also suggested that you do not have other programs running at the same time as NVivo. Plan a careful and regular back-up system for your NVivo project folder. The guide includes suggestions on compressing/zipping and backing up your NVivo project..

1 NVivo, NUD*IST Vivo and related logos are registered trademarks of QSR International Pty Ltd. Material included in this guide acknowledges material and help from QSR International Pty Ltd.

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Step 1: Create an NVivo Project

When first you create a project, from the NVivo Launch Pad, choose Create a Project Click the Next button between each step of the NVivo set up Wizard Choose Typical for the default location (C:\QSR Projects\<yourprojectname> or Custom if you want to locate the project in a different location of your choice. Type a project name and (optional) description Click the Finish button.

NVivo Launch Pad

Step 2: Explore the NVivo interface

From the NVivo Project Pad Click on Explore Documents to open the Document Explorer. Click on Explore Nodes to open the Node Explorer They currently contain no documents or nodes. Documents have to be created /imported. Nodes to store the categories for thinking about the data have to be created. Explore other menu options to familiarise yourself with the options.

NVivo Project Pad

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Step 3: Create documents

Click on Create a Document and use the New Document Wizard to Import documents Select Locate and import readable external text file(s) Locate the files you want to import. You can import one at a time or import all files at once in Step 2 by using Ctrl-Click to select them all from the source folder. [Documents can also be crated by copying text from the clipboard] Make Proxy documents for data you can’t or don’t want to import directly Select Make Proxy Document(s) representing external file(s) Or Make a Proxy Document for non-file data e.g. video or book Select Make a new blank document to create blank documents in NVivo

To prepare documents for importing: Type them up in MS-Word. You may use text colours, up to 9 levels of headings, different fonts & sizes, bold, italics, under-score, strike-through, tabs, indent, right/left/centre justify. When your documents are ready, in MS-Word from the File menu choose the Save As option and then in the Save as Type field, instead of Word document (*.doc) select Rich Text Format (*.rtf). OR If you use WordPerfect type up the documents and when they are ready, in WordPerfect, from the File menu choose the Save As option and in the File type: field, instead of WordPerfect select Rich Text Format (RTF). The name of the file should have the extension .rtf Close WordPerfect. Next you have an extra step to perform as the WordPerfect RTF format is not quite compatible with NVivo. Proceed with each of the files as follows: Open the .rtf format file in WordPad (you will find this on your computer under Programs then Accessories). In WordPad you will first need to select Rich Text Format as the file type so that WordPad can see the file you want. Then with the file open on screen, from the File menu choose the Save As option and in the Save as Type field, select Rich Text Format (RTF). When you save, a warning message will let you know that the file exists and ask if you want to replace the file. Select Yes. NVivo will ignore some features in your prepared documents e.g. page numbers, footnotes and borders. NVivo will not import documents with tables or embedded objects. Use the proxy options if the analysis goals do not require full transcriptions Or The full document is too large or not available e.g. fragile diary material Or For other media e.g. video, audio etc. Useful for jottings, reflective diaries, coding journal or field notes. (Any of the above can also be created as a Memo)

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Step 4: Save your project To save your project click on the Project Pad From the Project drop down menu, select Save Project

(By default there is also an auto-save feature which only functions to provide a copy if your system fails).

Step 5: Back up your project To make a back up copy of your NVivo project you need to back-up the project parent folder and all its sub-folders e.g. C:\QSR Projects\NRFproj as there are a number of subdirectories off this directory. The recommended method to back up is to use the NVivo Backup Project procedure that compresses the entire project folder system into a single *.qbk file.(See Appendix 2 for instructions to do this). Back up your project on a regular basis and keep copies in different locations if possible e.g. hard-drive, network drive, CD,. N.B. Also see the APPENDIX 1 & 2 for more details on files structure, copying and backing up. N.B. Do not open the files in the Database.nv1 directory as this could corrupt your project databases.

Path of project directories

N.B. Remember if you back up to CD use the backup procedure in NVivo or a zip process before you copy to CD then before you restore from CD change the Properties of your zipped file by deselecting the ‘Read-only’ attribute.

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Step 6: Browse your documents

From the NVivo Project Pad Click on Explore Documents to open the Document Explorer. Click on a document name and then click on the Browse button.

Read the document in the browser window. You may also edit the document in the browser as you would with word processing software, as well as change fonts, colours and text style to highlight parts that interest you.

Document Explorer screen

Document Browser screen

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Step 7: Create nodes – from prior ideas/theories ‘down’

Each node needs a name. A node description is optional. Ideas and coding are stored at nodes. A node need not have coding. Nodes can be stored as: Free nodes In Trees or as Cases

To create a node from an idea or theory: In the Project Pad click on Create a Node Click on your choice of Free, Tree or Case tab. In the Create Node dialog screen, in the Title: field type in a name for the idea e.g. Access. Type a description in the Description: field (optional). Click the Create button. Type your next idea in the title field and continue in the same way. Close this screen when you are done.

(Check the changes in the Node Explorer screen.)

Extract from Node Explorer screen

Create Node dialog screen

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Step 8: Add coding to existing nodes

From the Project Pad click on Explore Documents.

Select the Andrew document, then click on the Browse button.

Note the four icons/buttons on the speed coding bar at the bottom of the document browser screen. Click on the Coder icon

As you read the Andrew document select/highlight the text that refers to accommodation and from the Coder screen select the Accommodation free node and click on the Code button. The defined selection will change colour.

You can also do this coding by dragging and dropping the node name to the selected/highlighted text or vice versa.

Code more text with the existing nodes.

Close the Coder screen.

Check what you have coded by selecting Coding Stripes from the View menu

Speed coding bar

Coder screen

View drop-down menu

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Step 9: Add nodes and coding from the ‘data up’

Continue with reading the Andrew document and decide to add a node for Employment to code his comments about his work experience after he returned from hospital.

Select/highlight the comments and in the empty field on the speed coding bar type Employment Click on the Code button.

Now as you browse you read Andrew’s comments on discrimination and decide that word will be useful as a node title.

Select and highlight the word discrimination.

Click on the In-Vivo button on the speed coding bar. This creates a node with the title discrimination Select and highlight the text to code and click on the Code button.

Continue to code this and other documents using your choice of the various techniques

(Suggestion: check options available in parts of NVivo from menus that are displayed when you click the right mouse button.)

I went back to work about March. They didn't give me the same job back again, but I was sort of put on in an advisory capacity. They told me I'd always have a job, but it wasn't the same. So they advised me to set up my own business. Had a pretty fair business but was limited by the amount of capital I had.

Text on Andrew’s employment experience

Part of speed coding bar

Text with highlighted word for new node title

In-Vivo button on the speed coding bar

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Step 10: Import attributes & create new ones

Attributes, including demographic data concerning the participants, can be prepared outside NVivo in a spreadsheet, statistical or word-processing software package and saved as a tab-delimited file.

Then from the Project Pad from the Documents menu select the Import Document Attributes. Choose the file to import from its location.

Similarly you can Import Node Attributes. To create document attributes within NVivo:

From the Project Pad, select from the Documents menu Create/Edit Document Attribute. In the Create/Edit Attribute screen, type the new attribute name and (optional) description. Click the Apply button.

To add values to this attribute from the Attributes: field, first select the required attribute e.g. Age. Then select the Value tab. Type the new value and click on the Apply button. Continue until all values are entered. Click the Close button.

Note the default values that NVivo provides for each attribute in addition to those you assign.

Select Explore Document Attributes to apply/assign the attributes to each document. (See Appendix 4 for more details of how to do this).

DOCUMENT GENDER CAUSE CATEGORY AGENOW AGETHEN SERVUSE PROBLEMS Andrew Male motor vehicle accident complete paraplegic 40-49 30-39 non-user no problem Jim Male other incomplete paraplegic 60-69 50-59 user problem

Extract from tab-delimited file of attributes Note that in Document attributes the first entry is the word DOCUMENT. Node attributes have the first entry as NODE

Attributes entry screen

Attribute values entry screen

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Step 11: Link documents/text/nodes to other documents/text/nodes and external files/ media

NVivo enables linking between documents /text/ nodes and other documents/text/nodes and external files including other media.

The types of links are Doclinks, Nodelinks and DataBites.

To link an external file with a picture of the spine to the Project Brief document, browse the document and select/highlight picture of the spine. Click the Make/ Inspect DataBite icon/button.

Select the Link to File option and click the Create button. The text picture of the spine is now underlined to show it is linked. When your mouse is on this link the DataBites icon/button is active. Click on the icon to load the external file which contains the picture of the spine.

Internal annotations (short text passages that comment on some part of a document) can be linked in a similar manner. As can any Web Page.

From the Document Explorer click on a document, then on the DocLinks icon/button to link a new memo on the whole document. Do the same from a point within a document, to link a new memo on that part of the document.

Make/ Inspect

DocLinks

Make/Inspect

NodeLinks

Make/Inspect

DataBites

It was thought that the community service needs of people with spinal injuries would vary considerably according to the level of their spinal injury and subsequent functional abilities. Looking at a picture of the spine will help you to understand the functional abilities which can be affected by a spinal injury.

Extract from Project Brief document

For examples of DocLinks, memos and NodeLinks, open the Tutorial project Get On! Stage 2 and browse the Dave document.

In Get on with Living: Stage 2 the documents have been coded, memos written, and document and node links created. To understand more about the evolution of the project, browse the Journal document, where a record of the project has been maintained. Use this tutorial to work though the rest of this guide.

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Step 12: Searches

Initiate a search with Search from the Project Pad.

There are three steps involved in using the NVivo Search Tool: 1.Tell NVivo what to search for - Find 2.Tell NVivo where to look – in this (scope). 3.Tell NVivo what to do with results of the search –and spread finds Conduct a text search for physio in all documents and handle results as the default. Search results are located under the Tree Node structure in the Node Explorer. Look under the Search Results tree node. Browse the results. Select/ highlight and right click the mouse for each find in turn. Select Spread Passage. Choose to spread the coding in the selection to: 50 characters either side. To save this step you can select the And Spread Finds option before you Run Search

Search Tool screen

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Step 13: Shape your data with sets

Create a document Set of interview documents only so that you can make selections and do searches that target only those documents and omit the Project Brief, the memos and the journal.

From the Document Explorer, drag and drop an interview document title into the Sets icon. Give this new untitled Set the title: Interviews. Then drag and drop the other interviews into this set.

Icon for Sets

Set of interview documents

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Step 14: Reports and Profiles

In the Document Explorer, select a document title then select Make Text Report or Make Coding Report from the Document menu

Options to show include Section numbers, paragraph numbers and display of DataLinks as end-notes.

For a coding report you can select and browse a specific document or select for All Documents. Also you can choose a node a node set or All Nodes. You can also obtain profile tables of documents with Profile Document Information or Profile Coding for all Documents (in terms of character counts or number of passages) from the Documents menu in the Project Pad. A Profile of Coding from a Node Set can be can be obtained for individual documents from the Document menu in the Document Explorer.

Similarly from the Nodes menu you can Profile Node Information and Profile Coding for all Nodes in terms of character counts or number of passages.

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Step 15: Query your data Exercise 1: Asking questions about the relationship between a concept and an attribute You may like to know whether the issues of service provision are the same for all participants, or whether certain types of participants have particular issues which concern them. For example, are people who have everyday assistance (that is, a carer) concerned about different issues from people who do not have everyday help? To answer this question, you use the NVivo Search Tool to show which issues the two groups of people with spinal injuries spoke about. Activate the Search Tool by clicking Search the Project Database on the Project Pad or by clicking Analysis, Search Tool on the NVivo menu bar. To look at the text where those with everyday assistance spoke about 'availability', you could conduct a search using the Search Tool to find where the node ‘availability’ Intersects with the attribute having everyday assistance. Use the Boolean search. In the Search Tool, click Boolean. Choose the Operator: Intersection (and). Click Choose Node to choose the node for 'availability', then click OK. Next click Choose Attribute Values, double click the Document Attributes folder, locate the Attribute 'everyday help' and the Attribute Value 'yes everyday assistance' and click the = button to place the Attribute Value in the right hand window. Click OK. Click OK again to return to the Search Tool window. Next, set the scope for the search to the Document Set 'Interviews' by clicking Custom Scope, Edit List (of documents), and choosing the set 'Interviews' in the drop- down list above the right hand window of the Document Set Editor, then click the Search button. You will only want to search the interviews because you only want to see the text where the participants with everyday assistance spoke about availability. The default settings for handling the results are appropriate for this search. Ensure that the Use Custom Handling checkbox is not cleared to use the default settings. Click Run Search. NVivo will locate and provide access to the text in a tree node under Search Results, which you can browse, edit and code. Conducting this search will access data about a particular concept or issue, for a particular group of participants, but it will not easily allow you to compare the two groups of participants, those with and those without everyday assistance, across the six identified service provision issues.

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Exercise 2: Compare different participants' views on a number of issues To compare the participants with everyday assistance and those without you can conduct a Matrix Intersect search. Activate the Search Tool and choose to do a Boolean Search. Choose the Operator, Matrix Intersection from the drop-down menu. Two windows for choosing nodes or attributes will appear. Click Choose Nodes next to the upper window. Click Remove All if needed to remove nodes still there from a previous search. Click the tree to expand it until you can see the node 'issues of service provision'. Click this node to highlight it, then click Children to add the six sub-nodes for particular issues of service provision to the search window. Click OK. Next click Choose Attribute Values next to the lower window. Double-click the Document Attributes folder and locate the attribute 'everyday help'. Double-click the attribute to show the values. Choose the value 'yes everyday assistance' and click = to move the value to the right hand window. Repeat the procedure for the value 'no assistance'. Click OK. Click OK again to return to the search tool. Next set the scope for the search to the Document Set 'interviews'. Choose the default settings for handling the results. Click Run Search. NVivo will conduct the search and create a Matrix of results. A Matrix Inspector will be displayed summarizing the results. Each cell in the Matrix display represents one of the 12 nodes produced (6 service provision issues by 2 attribute values). You can change the Display using the drop -down menu, to show how many documents are coded at each node, or how many characters, or the number of coding references where the nodes appear together. Shading shows density of coding. By displaying the number of coding references you will see that the expectations of service providers was the major issue for people with everyday assistance, whilst the availability of services was the major issue for people with no everyday assistance. Working qualitatively, you are most likely to want to read what they say. To browse the text so you can interpret the results for any of the 12 intersection nodes represented by the cells in the Matrix, simply double-click the cell (or use a right-mouse-button menu option Browse/Edit/Code Node.) What did you find? Was availability an issue for people without everyday assistance because they are reliant on having services, in the absence of any family or friends who can care for them? People with everyday assistance may have to battle against the service providers’ expectations that the carers (usually family), rather than services, should provide the needed assistance.

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Exercise 3: Ask questions about the relationship between different concepts You may want to know which service provision issues are related to good services and which issues are related to the service being poor. To answer this question you could use a Boolean search using the Operator, Matrix intersection, in the same manner as the previous exercise. Matrix intersection, however, will only include text where the nodes and/or attributes of interest are coded on the same characters. This is fine for looking at nodes and attributes, because attributes are attached to whole documents. When considering the relationship between two concepts, the codes may appear near each other in each document, but may not be on the same characters. To overcome this potential problem, you need to do a Proximity search, rather than a Boolean search. To do this, activate the Search Tool and choose to do a Proximity search. Choose the Operator, Matrix Co-occurrence. Two windows for choosing nodes or attributes will appear together with some addition check boxes below the windows. Click Choose Nodes in the upper window and click through the tree to locate the node 'issues of service provision'. Click to add the Children to the right hand window. Click OK. Repeat this procedure in the lower window to add the children of the node 'evaluation of services' to the right hand window. In the check boxes below the two windows, set the distances within which you want NVivo to locate the co-occurring text. Use the drop-down menus to set both Scope Documents and Scope Nodes to 'in the same paragraph'. Click every checkbox at the bottom of the window so that NVivo will retrieve all the text from each of the co-occurrences within the same paragraph, together with the text that appears in between. Click OK. Next set the scope to the Document Set 'Interviews'. Choose the default settings for handling the results. Click Run Search. NVivo will find all the appropriate text and provide a summary in a Matrix Table. Choose to display the number of coding references. The data suggests that 'good' services were timely and high quality services where there was a relationship between the provider and the client, whilst 'poor' services were those where the providers had expectations of the person with spinal injuries and/or their carers. What other relationships can you see? Once again, double-click any cell in the Matrix to view the text and interpret the results.

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Exercise 4: Analyse inter-related nodes for redundancy and meaning You may find that when you are coding very finely, particularly for more abstract concepts, you are not sure whether the text is about one concept or another, or there are elements of both concepts. You might find yourself regularly applying the same set of nodes in combination. NVivo can place nodes into Node Sets to facilitate coding with more than one node. Some nodes may be redundant, that is, the coded concepts may be so inter-related that one node may be fully explained by the concepts captured in other nodes. You can use the NVivo Search Tool to group nodes and test for inter-relatedness and redundancy and then explore the meanings of related and non-related concepts. In this project, for example, is 'adjustment' different from 'changed life', or is it just an example of a type of change? Do you often find yourself coding the concept of adjustment at both 'adjustment' and 'changed life'? How inter-related are all the 'life impacts' concepts, and what is the importance and meanings of these inter-relationships? The way to answer these types of questions is to look at the text where the nodes of interest appear together and where the nodes of interest appear on their own. To look at the text where one node appears together with another node, you could conduct a search. Use the Search Tool to find where the nodes Intersect or are near each other, using the same process of conducting a Boolean or Proximity search outlined in the previous exercises, using the Operator, Intersect (and). NVivo will locate and provide access to the text in a node. By browsing this node you can decide whether one of the nodes is redundant. You could then repeat the process for each of the other possible combinations of nodes. In the current example, where you wish to analyze the inter-relatedness and possible redundancies of the 'life impacts' tree nodes, you would need to conduct many searches. Initially 49 searches to check for where the seven nodes in the 'life impacts' tree intersected with each other (in reality you would only need to do seven times six since you don't need to check each nodes relatedness to itself). Then you would need to perform another 49 searches to check for where the seven nodes were coded without one of the other nodes, done using the Boolean search Operator, Difference (less). A more efficient way to look at the text where a number of nodes appear together with number of other nodes is to get NVivo to conduct the 49 searches at the one time. To conduct the first 49 searches to analyze inter-relatedness, click Search the Project's Database on the Project Pad. Click to choose a Boolean search. Choose the Operator, Matrix Intersection.

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You may prefer to do a Proximity search using the Operator Matrix Co-occurrence if you feel that intersect would not adequately capture the inter-relationships between the concepts. Two boxes for choosing nodes will appear. Click Choose Nodes next to the upper window. Click Remove All if needed to remove nodes still there from a previous search. Click the tree to expand it until you can see the node 'life impacts'. Click this node to highlight it, then click Children to add the seven children of 'life impacts' to the search window. Click OK. Repeat the procedure by clicking Choose Nodes next to the lower window, once again choosing the children of 'life impacts'. Click OK. Set the scope for the search to the Document Set 'Interviews' and ensure that the Use Custom Handling checkbox is cleared to use the default settings. Click Run Search. NVivo will conduct the search and provide a Matrix summarizing the results. Each cell in the Matrix represents one of the 49 nodes produced. By looking at the number of coding references in each node in the intersect matrix you may decide that 'relationships', 'others' and 'dependent' have many coding references and are highly inter-related with most of the other concepts, perhaps with the exception of 'changed life'. 'Adjustment' and 'changed life' may look like they might hang together. To browse the text to allow you to interpret the results for any of the 49 intersection nodes represented by the cells in the Matrix, simply double-click the desired cell (or on the right-mouse-button menu click Browse/Edit/Code Node ). To look at the text where nodes appear in the absence of other nodes, you can undertake the same process of conducting a Boolean search, but using the Operator Matrix Difference. To do this all you need to do is click Search the Project Database on the Project Pad, choose a Boolean search and change the Operator to Matrix Difference. If you conduct this search immediately following the previous search then all other settings in the Search Tool will be correct. So simply change the Operator and click OK in the Boolean Search window, check that the nodes of interest are correct, and then click Run Search. By looking at the number of coding references in each node in the difference matrix you will see that whilst you know 'relationships', 'others' and 'dependent' are highly inter-related, you also now see that there are many references where they appear on their own. You could thus conclude that whilst being inter-related, these concepts have distinctive elements. You will also find that there are coding references where 'changed life' appears in the absence of 'adjustment', but there are few references where 'adjustment' occurs in the absence of 'changed life'. On the basis of this you could conclude that other nodes adequately explain the node ‘adjustment’. Double-click cells in the Matrix Inspector to view the text of this second matrix. Compare the text where concepts appear on their own with the text where the concepts appear together from the first Matrix. Is there anything different about the context or nature of the concept when it is the sole concept or inter-related? What might this difference mean?

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Step 16: Model your research You know from the previous analysis that there are five inter- related, yet distinctive concepts of life impacts. In order to better understand the inter-relationships and distinctions between the various life impacts you can construct a pictorial Model. To create a model, click Explore Models on the Project Pad. NVivo will be ready for you to create a New Model, since this is the first model in this project. To give your model an appropriate name, click the 'New Model' folder in the left window. Click Model, Properties in the Model Explorer menu bar or click the right mouse button to access the menu, and change the name from ‘New Model’ to ‘Life Impacts Relatedness’. Click OK. You now need to fetch the elements you wish to include in the model. To fetch a node for your model, click the Add Node button. Click through the tree in the Choose Node window to find the node 'dependent' (under /life impacts/dependency). Click OK. The node will now appear in the model window on the right window, and also in the Life Impacts Relatedness folder in the left window of the Model Explorer. Repeat the process to fetch the nodes 'others', 'normal life', 'changed life', and 'relationships'. You could also add other elements such as Documents (including Memos), or Attributes by clicking the Add Document button, or the Add Attributes button and selecting the element to be added. You can even add another model to the new model by clicking the Add Model button. To move the items around in the Model window, simply click the item and drag it to a new place. You now need to draw the links between the nodes. To do this, click one of the nodes you wish to link. Click the link button for a line without arrowheads, since you are not trying to show a directional or causal link in this model. Next click the node you wish to link the other node to. A line will appear linking the two nodes. You can change the appearance of the link lines to indicate their strength or importance. To do this, click the link you wish to change. Click with the right mouse button to see the pop-up menu. Click Style, New Style. In the Link Properties window you can give the link a Style Name, such as 'weak link', or 'important link'. Click Appearance to change the colour, arrowheads, line style and line thickness. Click OK. You can also design a number of styles before you start creating links in your model by clicking Tools, Link, New Style in the Model Explorer menu bar. Continue to link the other nodes to illustrate their inter-relatedness. Click the first node, click the right mouse button, click Add Link, choose the link style desired (or create a New Style), then click the second node. In the bottom window of the Model Explorer you can type any comments about the model. Here you may record your thoughts as you develop your model. You may also like to copy this text and paste it into your Journal document. To do this you will need to highlight the text and use CTRL C on the keyboard to copy the text. Open the Document Browser, and browse your Journal document. You can use either CTRL V on the keyboard or Edit, Paste from the menu bar in the Document Browser to paste the text into your Journal. To remove any elements from the model, simply click the element to be removed. Click with the right mouse button to access the pop-up menu, click Delete. To browse the text associated with any element, click the element, click the right mouse button to access the pop-up menu, click Browse/Code Node. Seeing the relationships between nodes, and/or other elements in a model may prompt you to consider other relationships. For example, you may wonder what 'dependent' means in the context of the concept of a normal life, compared with others, or relationships.

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The concept of 'dependent' has three children – 'dependent', 'independent' and 'interdependent'. Perhaps the different concepts of 'dependent' are related to the other 'life impact' concepts. Use the NVivo Search Tool to construct a Boolean Matrix Intersect or Proximity Matrix Co-occurrence, and Boolean Matrix Difference to look at the relationships between the three concepts of dependent (dependent, independent and interdependent), and the four other life impact concepts (stereotypical other, normal life, changed life and essential relationships). Follow the instructions for Exercise 3, substituting the children of 'dependent' for the children of 'life impacts' in one of the node selection boxes. Use the results of your search to create a new model. To create a new model click Create New Model in the Model Explorer Window. Fetch the elements for the model and draw in the links between them. You may find some curious relationships. For example, why does 'normal life' seem to be related to being either 'dependent' or 'independent'? Why is 'interdependence' not strongly related to 'normal life'? Is this anomaly related to the service providers' expectations that for people with spinal injuries to have a 'normal life' they must be either completely dependent on the service, or completely independent? You could hypothesize that there is a new concept that has something to do with providers' expectations, which may provide the link between 'interdependent' and 'normal life'. You may like to add a new concept to your model by clicking the New Concept button to link 'interdependence' and 'normal life'. Add the 'issues of service provision' node 'expectations' to the model and link it to the New Concept. Use the Search Tool to explore your hypothesis. Explore the relationships between the various 'issues of service provision' and various 'life impacts'. Perhaps you may also need to do more coding, and/or gather more data to explore the new concepts. Add your discoveries to the model.

Providers expections (10)

normal life (8)

independence (6)

dependence (7)

Interdependence (4)

Life impacts (5)

New concept

Issues of service provision (9)

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Step 17: What next? Analysing the concepts in an unstructured project is often an iterative process that involves the ongoing and somewhat circular processes of data collection, coding, searching, analysing and modelling. You can continue to ask questions about community services and the life impacts of spinal injuries until you can derive a model that that fits and works to explain the relationship between service provision, and the life impact of spinal injury. There are many more issues to study in the Get on with Living data. You may like to code, search, analyse and model another issue such as employment or discrimination. It is useful to check the Researcher’s (Lyn Kemp’s) coding journal to follow her thinking about her data and how she reflected and worked her way through the analysis

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Appendix 1: Back-up NVivo project files In addition to other suggested methods, NVivo now also provides a one file back-up utility that compresses the entire project into one file with the extension: *.qbk. By default this saves to the Back-up folder off the QSR Projects folder. The way you back up your projects often depends on your preference and what makes sense to you. It is strongly recommended that you try out and practice the method you choose to use to ensure that it works as you expect. (See Appendix 2 for instruction on using this recommended procedure for backups of your NVivo project)

The structure of a project

A project is contained in subfolders off a single project folder. This project folder contains other sub-folders some of which have dedicated functions and some of which do not (see below). Changes to the structure, contents or names of the Database folder (Database.nv1), or any of the folders or files contained therein, may prevent you from opening the project.

The project name that appears in the project list in the Open Project (and the Delete Project) dialog is distinct from the project folder's name (although projects created via the Typical option are initially assigned the same project name and folder name). Use the Choose button on the Open Project (and the Delete Project) dialog to control from which folder the project is opened.

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Note: The projects in each folder store their project name internally (changeable via Project Properties) and so the project in the chosen folder will only open when the project list and internal names match.

Backing up

Saving your project regularly as you work is a good habit to get into. This keeps your project at a latest version – but there is still only one copy. You should also make backup (duplicate) copies of your project. There are many ways to do this and described below are different approaches to managing backup which can suit different users' needs and preferences. There is no need to use all of these techniques. We suggest you select one and use it regularly.

Note: NVivo’s autosave feature only allows you to recover your data in the event of your application exiting unexpectedly (and therefore without saving). If you close your project and click "No" on the "Close Project: Do you want to save changes to the project?" message then NVivo will close the project in the same state as it was at the time of the last explicit save; it will not save the autosave data.

The "QSR Backups" folder referred to below could be stored on your hard disk, a server or a zip disk or CD. Floppy disks are not recommended for backing up, as projects often do not fit them – and multi-floppy backups although possible are prone to user or technical failure.

Choose a location that makes sense to you. A suggested approach is to back up to your hard disk copy throughout the day, keeping the last back up of the day, and then regularly back up all the important files (not just NVivo files!) to a different media on a fortnightly or monthly basis. The different media might be a network server, a ZIP disk, writeable CD or a (flash) memory stick etc. Note that copying files to a CD-ROM tends to mark them all read-only - you will need to remove the read-only flag from every folder and file in your project folder before opening the project or problems can occur (see below for how an archive/compression utility like WinZip can help avoid having to face the problem of the read-only flags).

It may be worth creating a new project for the sake of trying out these backup procedures as they will be much easier to understand once you start doing them. Also try recovering from a backup copy so that you are confident in this phase too.

Backing up using "Save Project" and file copying

1. Save your project (Save Project) and Exit NVivo. 2. Open the Windows Explorer (normally called from the Start > Programs menu) and

locate your project’s folder. 3. Select the project’s folder and copy it and all enclosed files and folders to the backup

location. (Please review your Windows documentation if you are unsure about how to copy).

A suggested way to keep my backups is to create a QSR Backups folder that contains a folder for each backup copy that has the date of the backup as part of the folder name (in year-month-day format so that they stay in order). Recent versions of NVivo create this folder for you off the QSR Projects folder. After exiting NVivo copy the project’s folder from the "QSR Projects" folder to the appropriate backup folder. The following picture shows a daily backup for the past five days and the weekly backup of the week before. How often you back up and how many of those backups you keep depends on your decisions for your project.

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To restore a backup project, backup the current version of the project and then delete it from "QSR Projects". Then copy the appropriate earlier backup from QSR Backups into "QSR Projects". (Deleting the project from the "QSR Projects" folder before copying the backup is a way of making sure the contents of the backup project and the project it’s meant to replace do not get confused.)

Backing up using a compression utility

Although it is recommended that you use the Backup procedure available within NVivo you can also use other compression utilities such as WinZip. Projects can be sent via email and the archive prevents all the folders and files from getting a read-only flag when copied to and from a CD-ROM. WinZip is available on most campus machines or download it from the utilities available at http://innerweb.nu.ac.za/softlib/

Following the idea of the above examples, pack your project as a dated archive e.g. "Project 99-07-14.zip". The project is copied into the archive, leaving the project in its original location.

Restoring a backup is a simple matter of archiving the current project, deleting it and then unpacking the desired archive to the same location. (It is recommended that you delete the project folder first so that there is no chance of ending up with half of the first project thrown together with half of the second project.)

N.B. If you restore from a CD-Rom copy remember to unflag the Read Only attribute of the file BEFORE you unzip the file otherwise the files will not be accessible by NVivo.

Deleting a project

If you have deleted the project folder directly from the disk using the Windows Explorer rather than the launch pad then you can also use the following process to remove the project’s name from NVivo’s project list.

1. Start NVivo to call the NVivo Launch Pad (no open project). 2. Click the Project Pad’s "Project" menu option "Delete Project" 3. Select the project you wish to delete from the project list and click "OK" to delete the

project from the list and delete all its folders from your disk.

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Appendix 2: Backing-up and/or compressing NVivo project files To keep regular back-ups of your entire system of folders that make up your NVivo project it is recommended that you use the ‘Project/Backup Project’ procedure from the Launch Pad Projects menu. This enables you to back-up with a single compressed file with ALL files and folders of your NVivo project compressed in a *.qbk format that you can also restore with the ‘Project/Restore Project’ procedure if you need to. This is also advised if you are backing up to CD as a CD changes the access right to files to Read Only and if you restore from CD you will only have to change the access properties of the one file before proceeding to restore the project. Both the ‘Backup Project’ option and the ‘Restore Project’ option are available from the NVivo launch pad so close the project (pad) and proceed from the Project menu of the NVivo Launch Pad.

To use the Backup procedure when the pop-up screen displays, ‘Choose’ your correct project in the ‘Project name’ field and then select a drive where to save the backup file. If you are attached to a Network it is a good idea to also save the file to a network drive. Put the date into the file name – near the beginning - so that you can keep track of your work if you need an audit trail of what you did when. Keep more than one copy of the backup file e.g. on a hard-drive, on a network drive, on a flash memory stick and if you have a CD-writer you can also backup to CD.

N.B. If you restore from a CD-Rom copy remember to unflag the Read Only attribute of the file BEFORE you restore the file otherwise the files will not be accessible by NVivo.

There are other options to backup and compress your NVivo project folder – also see Appendix 1. How your compression / zip software or utility is accessed depends on your operating system. Windows XP has its own compression /zip utility which can be accessed in Windows Explorer or My Computer.

• Right click on your named NVivo project parent folder and then from the pop-up menu select Send to compressed (zip) folder.

OR

If you have WinZip software on your system you will also have the WinZip option on the menu from the Right click menu. Select this and then e.g. Add to Zip file.

By default WinZip will use the folder name for a new zip archive and zip it to the same directory – or choose a directory of your choice.

Click the OK button

Your system or compression/zip software may work differently from this. It is STRONGLY recommended that you practice backing up and restoring your project so that you become familiar and confident with the process.

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Appendix 3: Batch auto-code by section If your interview documents are formatted with MS-Word Heading levels there is an option to auto-code a document by section. Thus if each question asked is a heading level e.g. Heading 2, then each question will be coded at a node with the question as the title. From version 1.3 of NVivo this auto-coding by section can be done in batch mode across a number of documents. This is useful if you have e.g. structured interviews where the same questions were asked in each interview. In version 2 the process is as follows: 1. Start by creating a (Tree) parent node for the auto-coding e.g. Questions. 2. In the Document Explorer, select All Documents in the left-hand pane. 3. Right-click your mouse and select Code Documents by Section

4. Choose the parent node you created 5. Click OK and it’s now done and can be viewed in the Node Explorer.

Tree node branch after batch coding by section the identically structured interviews in the tutorial project: Violence prevention: Stage 2. Each question node then has the responses of each person interviewed to that question..

1 ‘Right click’ means you click the RIGHT mouse button, not the usual LEFT button. Page 28/28

Click-start Guide to NVivo

Appendix 4: Apply/assign existing Attribute values to documents This example will use Document attributes and Documents but the process works for Node Attributes and Nodes in the same way. This step assumes that you have created Document Attributes with their values and have Documents in your NVivo project. In the example illustrated here there are two Document attributes with their respective attribute values as follows: 1. Document attribute: Gender Documents attribute values: Male, Female 2. Document attribute: Document type Documents attribute values: Interview, Policy document, Focus Group, Article, Book, Other. In addition there are 6 Documents for which we know the values of the attributes. The documents are: Durban Group PMB Group Adrian S Jenny B Grant guidelines Denzin - Case studies In the Document Explorer select Explore Document Attributes for the following matrix to appear:

Document Attribute Explorer Screen

Pop-up menu for cells in Gender column:

Select a cell e.g. Gender for Adrian S and Right click1. Select Male from the pop-up menu. Repeat appropriately for each cell for each document and each attribute. N.B. Save your NVivo project regularly from the Project /Save project menu entry in the Project Pad – see step 4 of this guide.