Hi all!
This might be an odd question, however, I have struggled with it for
quite some time:
I am looking for software to manage, as opposed to analyze, qualitative
data.
My example: we have conducted a study of a bank, by interviewing a lot
of people and shadowing a number of managers. This has resulted in a
large amount of files, containing:
- notes (fieldnotes)
- audio recordings of interviews
- transcripts of these interviews
- audio recordings of "observations", that is, shadowing managers for
many hours
- notes describing these recordings
- transcriptions of parts of these recordings
- memos and general notes
Much of the material can be organized in "cases", that is "everything
related to manager X in branch Y". However, just arraning the files is
not sufficient. We need notes and stories, like summaries of every day,
lists of "interesting interactions containing a manager and a
subordinate" etc, that is, along more than one dimension. Further, much
of the observations become split into much smaller segments, with focal
interactions etc, producing more files, that we need to keep track of.
Phew.
We've been working with spreadsheets and I've fiddled with a home-made
SQL database to manage all this. I believe the SQL database is a good
way, but it takes more programming and database design competencies than
we can easily muster.
I've been searching the literature and the web, including
sourceforge.org, to find somthing useful to help us with this. This task
can partly be solved by using Nvivo and similar programs, but that does
not feel like a good solution (using analysis software for management
purposes).
So: anyone has any suggestions for how to move forward on this? Anyone
recognize the issue?
Oh yes: whatever it is would need to be for cooperation. Web-based,
preferably.
Best,
Magnus Larsson
Copenhagen Business School
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