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This topic introduces some of the new features provided by NVivo 9. If you are familiar with NVivo 8, you might also want to read about the Key differences: NVivo 8 to NVivo 9.
In this topic
NVivo 9.2 introduces framework matrices. Framework matrices provide a way you can summarize your source materials in a grid that has rows for your cases (for example, people you interviewed) and columns for your themes. Each cell in the grid represents the intersection of a case and theme—this is where you record your summary of source content relevant to that case and theme.
Working with summarized source materials in the framework matrix can make it easier to:
See everything about a theme by looking down a column
See how different themes relate to each other for a particular individual by looking across a row
Compare the experiences of different individuals by comparing one row to another
Refer to About framework matrices for more information.
NVivo 9.1 (or later) changes the way you work with PDF files. PDFs are now imported into NVivo as 'PDF sources' (rather than document sources) and the layout and format of the PDF is preserved in NVivo—for example, if your PDF has a two-column layout, then this is how it will appear in NVivo. If your PDF has bookmarks, then these are available in NVivo too.
When you work with PDF sources in NVivo 9.1 (or later), you can select text or switch to 'region selection' and select rectangular areas of the page. Just like other sources, you can code, annotate or link selected content—for example, you might select a paragraph of text to code, and then switch to region selection and code an area of the page containing a chart.
Refer to About document and PDF sources for more information.
Import and work with qualitative data stored in a structured format, including Excel spreadsheets, Access database tables, and delimited text files.
For example, if you conduct a web survey, the survey responses could be contained in a spreadsheet or database. Your respondents may have provided information about themselves (for example, age and sex) and responses to open ended survey questions (for example, How do you think we could improve the urban environment?). You can import all this information into NVivo and then:
Use demographic information about the respondent to build nodes that represent your respondents
Analyze open-ended survey responses
Because datasets can contain large amounts of data, NVivo provides automated ways to code the content of your datasets.
Refer to About dataset sources for more information.
Source classifications let you record information about your sources—for example, the author and year of a journal article. Each classification has its own set of attributes.
NVivo provides the following options for 'classifying' your sources:
Import a literature review from reference management tools like EndNote, Zotero or RefWorks—bibliographical classifications are automatically created and applied. If you have made notes about your references, these notes can be imported into NVivo as memos.
Add NVivo's predefined bibliographical classifications to your project and use them to classify your sources—export the data to your reference management tool when you are ready to write up your findings, cite your sources and format the references.
Add and apply the general classifications Interview and Focus Group to keep track of the sources containing respondent feedback.
Create your own custom classifications to record any other type of information about your source materials that is relevant to your project.
Refer to About classifying sources for more information.
You can create different classifications for the people, places or other entities you are researching. Each classification has its own set of attributes.
For example, if you were conducting a survey about recycling and water conservation in a school, you might talk to parents, students and teachers. You can create a separate classification for each type of respondent so that you can record different types of information about them—you might record age and sex for all respondents, but for teachers you might also record their number of years teaching. For parents, you might want to record how many children they have and the age of their oldest child.
Refer to About nodes (create nodes for people, places and other entities) for more information.
When working with nodes in a hierarchy, you can gather all the material in child nodes and roll it up to the parent node.
When you open a parent node (that has aggregation turned on) you can see the material coded directly at the node as well as any material coded at its first-level child nodes.
For example, you could create a parent node Pollution and create child nodes below for Industrial Waste, Domestic Sewage and Agricultural Runoff. If you turn on aggregation at Pollution and open the node, you will see everything coded at Industrial Waste, Domestic Sewage and Agricultural Runoff as well.
Refer to About nodes (Aggregating nodes) for more information.
Use color to visually identify the items in your project:
Give your nodes a color and see this reflected in coding stripes, charts, models and tree maps and graphs.
Use color to group and identify your sources.
Use color to visually identify project users—display coding stripes to easily see the coding done by each team member.
Assign a color to attribute values to identify them in charts and tree maps—for example, assign the color green to respondents from rural areas.
You can optionally display source and node colors in List View.
Refer to About color for more information.
Reports allow you to view or print summaries of the data in your project.—for example, you could print a report to see your node structure including information about the folder location, list order, aggregate status, nickname and color.
The new reporting features in NVivo 9 allow you to
Use predefined reports or create your own using the Report wizard or designer
Build reports that include grouping, filtering and summary calculations
Export report results for use in other applications such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint
Share report 'templates' with other NVivo users and across projects
Extracts let you export a collection of data to a text, Excel or XML file—this can be useful when you want to use your data for further analysis in other applications. You can use predefined extracts or create your own. You can also share extract 'templates' with other NVivo users.
Cluster analysis can help you to see patterns of similarity and dissimilarity in your sources and nodes—for example, you could check whether you have a diverse range of survey respondents, or look for patterns of similarity in the text content of your sources.
Tree maps can help you to see how your coding is distributed. Are some sources more heavily coded than others? Do some nodes contain more coding references than others? You can also use tree maps to show the distribution of attribute values—for example, see the demographic spread of your survey respondents.
NVivo 9 provides many other ways to visualize your data, including graphs, connection maps, and word trees.
When you run a Text Search query, you can look for exact words or include words that have a related meaning. For example, search for development and also find growth and progress.
Similarly, when you run a Word Frequency query, you can count individual words or group words with related meanings to help you identify the main themes in your data.
When you preview query results in Detail View, there are new tabs that help you to visualize the information—you can view the results as a word tree (Text Search query), cluster analysis diagram or tree map (Word Frequency query) or connection map (Group query).
Saving Advanced Find criteria as a Search Folder means you can execute the Find any time you want to, simply by opening the Search Folder. Whenever you open the Search Folder, you will see a list of project items that meet the search criteria at that point in time. If you change your project (for example, add or remove sources or nodes), then the items shown in the Search Folder will change.
You can use Search Folders to select the items you want to show in charts, cluster analysis diagrams and tree maps. You can also use Search Folders in the scope of queries—this allows you to create queries with dynamic scope. Refer to About collections (Search Folders) for more information.
The new Group query allows you to find project items by association—because it is a query, you can save your find criteria and run the query again and again. Refer to Run a Group query for more information.
Turn on project event logging to monitor who made changes to your project, when the changes were made and what project item was changed.
You can filter or sort the event log—for example, you can sort or filter the log to find all the changes made by a particular user.
If you want to keep a record of the log outside of your project, you can export log entries can be exported to an Excel workbook or to a document file.
Refer to Keep a project event log for more information.
Combine NVivo with NVivo Server and store you projects on a central server. When you work with server projects:
Team members can work in the same project at the same time and see changes made by others as they work.
Sources can be viewed and analyzed by multiple researchers at once.
Your project is stored in a central database repository on the NVivo Server. Your server administrator can keep track of all projects in one secure location.
You can give users different levels of access to projects—for example, you could give certain users read-only access, but allow others to add, change and delete project content.
You can create larger projects. Projects can be larger than 4GB project—size is only limited by available storage capacity. And, you can embed larger media files (up to 100 MB) in server projects.
Refer to About NVivo Server and About Teamwork in a server project for more information.