I agree with Tom
I have just completed an analysis of over 700 reports using N5 (about 10,000
sides). The software worked flawlessly and I have no reason to believe it
would not work just as well with a larger data set. Just as important is to
organise your work effectively from the outset. There is plenty of advice
available from CAQDAS and registered trainers. We had excellent support from
our IS team. I suggest you talk to your computing support team to find out
whether they can produce a VBA or other programme to do some of the batch
processing associated with preparing scanned text for analysis.
Good luck
David Cairns
Dr David Cairns, Assistant Director, Institutional Review Group, QAA
Southgate House, Southgate Street, Gloucester, GL1 1UB
Tel: 01452 55 7106 (direct line) Fax: 01452 55 7011
Mobile: 07774 816875
PA Mrs Tracey Hendry 01452 55 7108 e-mail [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Richards [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 25 July 2002 08:45
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Searching for the best software to use
We have buckets of users all over the world analysing data sets far larger
than that in N4 and N5, and it'll happen in N6. You mightn't be able to do
grounded theory in too meticulous a way, but there are lots of qualitative
techniques for working through such data. Nor need it be a lengthy process,
e.g. exploit scripting facilities! It depends on what you want out of your
data, the purpose and scope of the study, etc. etc. Qualitative research is
a broad church, and many types should be allowed to worship there.
Tom
Dr Thomas J. Richards
Chief Scientist, QSR International
2nd floor, 651 Doncaster Rd
Doncaster, Vic 3108, Australia.
Tel +61(0)3 9840-1100
Fax +61(0)3 9840-1500
www.qsrinternational.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Harald Klein [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2002 5:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Searching for the best software to use
Chris Baxter wrote:
> Good morning,
> I am currently working on my PhD dissertation, which will require some
> qualitative analysis. I have viewed several qualitative software demos
and
> have experienced some difficulty in locating one that will work with the
> types of documents I have. I am preparing to scan 30,000 sheets of paper
> to convert them to files for analysis.
Do you really want to ANALYSE this huge amount of data qualitatively?
This will take a lot of time.
For this amount of data I wouldn't use QDA software at all, but you must
know what you want, and as long as I don't know the rationale of your
project, it is difficult to advise.
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