ATLAS'ti 5'0 Introduction

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ATLAS.ti 5.0 Introduction

• Shuyuann W. Foreman, RN, MS, PhC
• Office for Nursing Research
• School of Nursing
• University of Washington

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ATLAS.ti

• A powerful workstation for qualitative analysis
  of large bodies of text, graphic, audio, and
  video data

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ATLAS.ti

• It offers a variety of tools for accomplishing
  the tasks associated with any systematic approach
  to unstructured data, e.g., data that cannot be
  meaningfully analyzed by formal, statistical
  approaches

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Getting started

• School of Nursing supports ATLAS.ti 5.0 software
• Free demo version
• http//www.atlasti.com/demo.shtml
• Double-click on the shortcut
• A new Hermeneutic Unit shows up
• Save the new HU first, with a title reflecting
  your research File/Save As
• Open an existing HU drag-and-drop

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Terminology

• Hermeneutic Unit (HU)
• Primary Documents (PDs)
• Quotations
• Codes
• Memos
• Families
• Network

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Hermeneutic Unit (HU)

• A container that keeps all the data, codes,
  memos, and findings from the same project in a
  single environment

codes
P1
quotations
P2
HU1
memos
P3
Networks
codes
P1
HU2
quotations
P2
memos
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HU

• Write comments, purposes, or thoughts related to
  the particular project
• File/Edit Comment
• Save the comment click on the check mark in the
  toolbar or select Comment/Save
• Toolbar

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Primary Documents (PD)

• The firsthand materials you wish to analyze,
  including text, graphical, audio, and/or video
  data
• Text formats MS Word (.doc), rich text format
  (.rtf), HTML, Excel
• Editing PDs cannot edit Word files, can edit RTF
  files
• Should be stored in the same place on your
  computer

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Primary Documents (PD)

• Assigning PDs into HU
• Drag drop into the text window
• Drag drop into the PD drop-down list
• Assign from menu Documents/Assign
• PD manager
• Definition or notes for each PD

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Quotations

• Useful or important segments recognized by the
  interpreter from a PD
• Can be a word, sentence, paragraph, or the whole
  text
• Free quotation or link to selected codes
• Types textual, graphical, and audio

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Creating Quotations

• Semi-automatic selection
• Place the cursor on one word, double click ONCE
  to highlight the word, TWICE for the sentence,
  THREE times for the paragraph, FOUR times for the
  whole text, and FIVE times to deselect the whole
  text
• Manual selection
• Move and drag the mouse cursor to highlight the
  selection from the beginning to the end of the
  text desired

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Codes

• Create "keywords", which are used to sort and
  capture similar contents (quotations) of primary
  data into simple words for search
• Track trends or patterns
• Concise, not verbose

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Coding

• Open coding
• Create a new code
• Select text, right click the mouse button,
  Coding/Open coding, assign a code
• Code by list
• Select from the existing codes
• Select text, right click the mouse button,
  Coding/Code by List

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Coding

• In-vivo coding
• Selected text itself is treated as a quotation
  and used as code name
• Quick coding
• Code with the last selected code
• Free coding
• A new code without any links

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Auto Coding

• Assign a certain code throughout the whole text
• Menu Codes/Coding/Auto Coding
• Select the appropriate code
• In the Enter or select Search Expression,
  define a new category
• miscommunicationcommunicationmiscommunication
  
• Check Confirm Always box and click Start
• When it finds the word in the text that matches
  your search, it stops the search and highlights
  the particular text

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Modifying coded text

• Change boundaries of quotation
• Select and highlight the created text or code in
  the margin area
• Reselect the proper text
• Quotations/Modify Boundary
• The codes name is not changed

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Other coding functions

• Renaming a code
• Open Code Manager, highlight the code to be
  renamed, right mouse click, choose Rename, enter
  the new code. All the quotations refer to the
  existed code will be changed to new code name
• In-place change

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Other coding functions

• Writing code definitions
• Open Code Manager
• Select a code to define
• Place cursor in the text pane below the code
  list, type in the definition or comments
• Save right click mouse/Accept
• The codes with definitions will show behind
  the name in the margin area

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Memos

• Annotations of your texts, emerging concepts,
  theories, or other thoughts
• Contains longer messages than a code
• May stand alone (free memos), be linked with
  codes, quotations, or even other memos
• Menu Memos/Create Free Memo

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Families

• As containers" to cluster a large number of
  objects, such as primary documents, codes, and
  memos, for easier handling
• e.g. Grouping codes
• Menu Codes/Edit Families/Open Family Manager/New
  Family/Create a new family name add codes to
  this family

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Network

• A device to structure and express strong
  relationships among PDs, codes, quotations, and
  memos
• Open the code manager
• Open a network view by clicking the network
  button
• Select and drag the codes into the network editor
• Link two notes and apply appropriate relations

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Hyperlink

• Link two related quotations
• How to
• Select a text from the PD, right mouse click and
  choose Create Link Source
• Select a second text, right mouse click and
  choose Create Link Target
• Choose the correct relationship from the menu

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Searching Text

• Text Search
• Search for the occurrence of specific text within
  PDs
• Within the PD, click the text search button to
  the left of the PD pane
• Enter a string for search, set Case Sensitive as
  needed, start search by clicking Previous/Next
• Object Crawler
• Search for text in all objects
• Menu Tools/Object Crawler

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Extra features

• Word Cruncher
• Simple quantitative content analysis of the
  text count the frequency of every single word in
  the PD
• Menu Documents/Miscellaneous/Word Cruncher

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Extra features

• Creating Outputs
• Teamwork co-authoring
• Merge HUs