Introduction to Atlas.TI 9

Windows

NYU Data Services

• ArcGIS
• ATLAS.ti
• Carto DB
• GitHub
• MATLAB
• MAXQDA
• Qualtrics
• Python
• R
• SPSS
• STATA

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https://guides.nyu.edu/dataservices

Objectives for Workshop

• Why use Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) Software
• Starting a project & Preparing Documents
• Code themes, highlight quotations & write memos
• Capture Patterns, Create Output, and Begin Analysis

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• Export and Save your project
• Access Software
• Further Resources

Objective of QDA

Discovery of Conceptual Outputs: Relationships, Discursive Patterns, Themes

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Discovery of Measurable Outputs: Frequencies, Scales, Directionality

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Data Management Perspective: Organizing Your Source Material

Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis (CAQDA)

What CAQDA Does

Coding

Assigning Concepts

Classifying

Store Description Information

Memos

Writing & Describing Conceptual Ideas

Visualization

Articulating Connections, Relationships, Patterns

Starting a project

Click this icon to start a new project

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Atlas.ti Dashboard

Each action in Atlas Ti can be accessed via the ribbon at the top of the page or through the explorer tab on the left-hand side of the screen.

Import Primary Documents

1. Click “Add Documents” and then “Add Files”

Primary Documents Manager

Import /Export Data�

Click on Import/Export to view options

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Twitter

Evernote

Endnote

Survey

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SPSS

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Code Book (.xls)

PDF Annotations

If you annotated your PDF document prior to assigning it to your Atlas.ti project, your annotations will now be retained

and can be displayed.

Classifying

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Assigning

Classification / Attributes

Age (Age:: <30)

Gender (Gender:: Male)

Document Type (TypeDoc:: Interview)

Year of Collection (Year:: 2011)

Location (Location:: Rural)

Site Location (Site:: NYC)

Document Manager

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Open Document Manager

1. Double click to add document

2. Documents open here

What is Coding?

• Inductive reasoning - is probable, based upon the evidence given (bottom-up logic) Expanding on the logic & evidence given

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• Deductive reasoning - links premises with conclusion (top-down logic) A conclusion is reached by applying general rules that hold over entirely of a closed domain of discourse, narrowing the range under consideration until only the conclusion(s) is/are left

Codes

• Code Bank – create a designated list of codes
• Open Coding - spontaneously code as you go
• Auto Coding – code using Keyword Search Function
• List Coding- pick multiple codes from a list
• Quick Coding- use last code applied
• Focus Group Coding- Automatically identify and code each speaker in focus group document

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Johnny Saldaña. The Coding Manual for Qualitative Research.

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Coding in the Document

When you highlight a quote, coding options appear here!

Open Code Manager

Create a Free Code

1. Click Free Codes

2. Enter new code name

Apply Code

1. Highlight quotation in document

Apply Code (Continued)

Quick Coding

3. Previously used code

appears in Coding Stripe

1. Highlight quotation in document

2. Click “Quick Coding”

Group Coding

Focus Group Coding (1)

• In Atlas.ti 9, you can use automatic group coding to identify and code each speaker in a focus group document
• This allows for comparisons of statements by different speakers or speaker attributes (such as gender or education level).
• Document must be .doc or .rtf, txt format (Atlas.ti cannot automatically code a focus group in PDF or other format)
• Works best with Word Documents that are consistently formatted to allow software to detect new speakers.
• As coding all speakers often result in dense coding, Atlas Ti recommends using this function after you have coded the focus group transcript for content.

Focus Group Coding (3)

Select a focus group transcript in the Document Manager and select Focus Group Coding from the Documents ribbon.

Alternatively: Right-click on a document in the Project Explorer and select Focus Group Coding from the context menu.

Next, select a pattern for recognizing speaker units

After selecting a pattern, click Next.

Focus Group Coding (4)

• ATLAS.ti lists all strings that fit the selected pattern and uses these as code name. If a colon (:) was used also elsewhere in the transcripts, not all finds are speakers.
• Deselect all finds that are not speakers, if any.
• Check the suggested codes and modify the names if desired.
• Add additional codes, if you want to code the speaker units with multiple codes. Each code needs to be separated by a semicolon.
• If you enter codes that already exist in your code list, they will not be duplicated.
• Click on the button Code.

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Focus Group Coding (5)

• ATLAS.ti codes all speaker units. Once it is done, you see a summary screen.
• Double-check the results in context and take a look at the Code Manager. ATLAS.ti also creates a code group from all codes. If the results are not what you expected, you can undo all coding at this stage.

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Advanced Coding: Intercoding Mode

•  ATLAS,ti 9 now comes with a sophisticated tool to measure intercoder agreement, i.e. assess the level of agreement of how multiple coders analyze a given body of data. In several paradigms of qualitative research, higher levels of coder agreements means more validity of the process of analysis
• To use this feature, you need to add a new user and then add the user to the intercoder mode.
• You can test inter-coder agreement in text, audio and video documents. Image documents are not supported. This also applies to image quotations in text PDF documents.

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Atlas Ti instruction for Coders

Advanced Coding: �Intercoder Mode

�Merging Projects for Intercoder Agreement Analysis

• The process is for two independent coders, if you want to add another coder you will need to do the process again.
• Atlas Ti 9 recommends that you import the project bundle files of coder 1 and 2 before merging them for inspection. Did the coders do what they were supposed to do? Did they send you the correct project? Project bundle files can also be merged directly. However, if a merge conflict occurs you may not know why because you have not looked inside the projects you are merging.
• Open the project of coder 1 and create a snapshot. Name the copy something like 'Project for ICA XY coder 1 and 2'. Merge the project of coder 2 into this version of the project.
• Close the project of coder 1 and open the snapshot.
• Before the project merge, set the project into inter-coder mode.
• Select Analyze / Enable Intercoder Mode.
• Select File / Merge and select the project of coder 2 to be merged. This is the import project. Follow the instructions on the screen. There should be no merge conflicts. For more detail see Project Merge.
• When you set up the project correctly and all coders did what they were supposed to do, then there should be no merge conflict!

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Advanced Coding �Intercoder Mode

Before you can use the Intecoder Mode

Add a new user.

Click on the File Tab

Select New User.

�Merging Projects for Intercoder Agreement Analysis

• After merging in ICA mode, The codings of all coders will become visible.
• Open one document and take a look at the margin area. If you see the same codes applied to the same quotations, this is good. It means the two coders agree.
• Click on the View tab and instead of displaying the code icons, select Show User.
• Now you see coder icons. Each coder is indicated by a different color. Hover over the coder icon to see the name of the coder.
• The ability to see who has coded what in the margin area is useful for some purposes, e.g., if you want to discuss data segments where coders did not agree. However, there is no need to manually check all codings in the margin. For this you can run the inter-coder agreement analysis. See Running an Inter-coder Agreement Analysis.
• In ICA mode, you can see which coder has applied which code to a quotation.

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Memos

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• Write analytic memos about your selected quotes
• Write about your codes
• Write a note to other research partners

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Memo Creation

• Click on Memos manager button
• Memo Manager pops up
• Click on Memo menu
• Enter name of memo and then include | symbol
• Hit enter, Memo window should pop up
• Write and Save
• Can drag memo icon to highlighted quotes or existing code

Memo Creation (Continued)

• You can also generate a report afterwards to guide the dissemination of the analysis

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Atlas Ti 9 recommends creating a Memo for each research question/objective and connect them to codes and add possible theoretical explanations

Document Analysis: �Word Cloud

1. To create a word cloud for documents or codes or quotations select one or more items e.g. in the Project Explorer or in the respective manager.
2. You can always add or remove more items of the same entity type to the cloud or list, once the word cloud has been created.
3. In the Project Explorer, right-click and select the option Word Cloud. In a manager, select the Word Cloud option from the ribbon.

Other options are:

• to load a document first and select the Word Cloud button in the ribbon.
• to open a manager and select the Word Cloud button in the ribbon.

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Document Analysis: �Word Cloud

Document Analysis

• Word Counts with in Managers
• Reports within Managers
• Analysis Tab

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Creating Word Lists

1. To create a word list for documents or codes or quotations select one or more items e.g. in the Project Explorer or the respective manager.
2. You can always add or remove more items of the same entity type to the list, once the word list has been created (see Setting the Scope below).
3. In the Project Explorer, right-click and select the option Word List. In the Managers, select the Word List option in the ribbon.
4. Other options are:
1. to load a document first and select the Word List button in the ribbon.
2. to open a document, quotation or code manager and select the Word List button in the ribbon.

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Word List: Sorting Word List and Setting Scope

Be default, word lists are sorted in alphabetical order by the first column 'Word'. You can also sort by any of the other columns by clicking on the column header.

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Once you created a word list, you see a side panel on the left. The check-boxes of the currently active entities are checked. You can check further entities or uncheck already activated entities.

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Codes Co-occurrence Explorer

Use the Code Co-occurrence Explorer to explore coded data to get a quick overview where there might be interesting overlaps. If you are looking for specific co-occurrences and for accessing the quotations of co-occurring codes, the Code Co-occurrence Table is the better choice.

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To open the tool, select the Analyze tab and click Co-oc Explorer.

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The Code Co-occurrence Explorer can also be loaded from the Home tab into the navigator on the left hand side by clicking on the drop-down arrow of the Navigator button.

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Codes Co-occurrence Table

Codes Co-occurrence Table

Analysis: Network View

Networks can visually represent the relationships and linages between different elements in your project.

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Networks can be created from codes, documents, quotations, or even other networks.

Network View Options

Network Editor and Routing Options

You can select among twelve automatic layout options. The results of the automatic layout procedure are typically quite usable and provide a good starting point for subsequent manual refinement. They can be combined with four routing options that are responsible for an optimal placement of the links.

The Layout and routing options are available from the Network Editor via the main Network Tab, and the View Tab. By moving nodes to different positions, you can modify an initial layout created by the automatic layout procedure. For precision placement of nodes, use the Grid and Snap option under the View Tab.

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Network Editor Further Options

Changing Code Color

Merge Codes

Duplicate Codes

Create Groups

Traversing Hyperlinks in Networks

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Sankey Diagrams

Sankey diagrams are used for presenting data flows and data connections across various disciplines.

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In ATLAS.ti, the Sankey diagram complements the Code Co-occurrence Table. As soon as you create a table, a Sankey diagram visualizing the data will be shown below the table.

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The row and column entities of the table are represented in the Sankey model as nodes and edges, showing the strength of co-occurrence between the pairs of nodes. In the Code Co-occurrence table, the connecting pairs are codes for both rows and columns.

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For each table cell containing a value, an edge is displayed between the diagram nodes. The thickness of the edges resemble the cell values of the table. Cells with value 0 are not displayed in the Sankey view.

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Sankey Diagrams

(Continued)

If you only want to see the table, or the Sankey diagram:

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You can select what you want to see by making a selection in the ribbon at the top lefthand side. If you need more space on your screen for the diagram, you can also deactivate the selection lists under the View tab.

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Layout:

This basic layout places the selected entities (nodes in Sankey terminology) into vertical „layers“ with the row entities placed to the left and the column entities to the right. If nodes have incoming as well as outgoing links in the currently visible set of nodes, they will be placed in intermediate lanes or layers. In many situations, the initial layout already meets the researchers requirements. However, there are some options to modify the initial layout.

Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis is the interpretation and classification of emotions (positive, negative and neutral) within text data using text analysis techniques.

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Carrying out a Sentiment analysis:

To open the tool, select the Search & Code tab and from there Sentiment Analysis.

Select documents or document groups that you want to search and click Continue.

Select whether the base unit for the search, and the later coding, should be paragraphs or sentences, and which sentiment you want to search for.

ATLAS.ti proposes code label for each sentiment: Positive / Neutral / Negative. If you want to use different code names, you can change them here.

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Sentiment Analysis (Continued)

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The result page shows you a Quotation Reader indicating where the quotations are when coding the data with the proposed code. If coding already exist at the quotation, it will also be shown.

By clicking on the eye icon, you can change between small. medium and large previews.

You can code all results with one of the the proposed codes or with all proposed codes at once; or you can go through review each data segment and then code it by clicking on the plus next to the code name.

You can code all results at once by clicking Apply Proposed Codes, and from there you either select Apply All Codes, or you select one of the codes from the list.

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Expert Search with Regular Expressions (regex)

GREP is a well-known search tool in the UNIX world. The original GREP tool printed each line containing the search pattern, hence the acronym GREP (Globally search for a Regular Expression and Print matching lines).

In ATLAS.ti, the results of a GREP search are not printed line-by-line; rather, the text matching the search pattern is highlighted on the screen, or you can automatically code the results including some surrounding context.

The core of a GREP search is the inclusion of special characters in the search string that control the matching process. GREP finds instances in your data that match certain patterns.

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You can test and debug any regular expression you formulate on this website: https://regex101.com/

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Expert Search with Regular Expressions (regex) (Continued)

Carrying out a text search with Regex

To open the tool, select the Search & Code tab and from there Expert Search.

Select documents or document groups that you want to search and click Continue.

Select whether the base unit for the search and the later coding should be:

• paragraphs
• sentences
• words
• the exact match

Enter a search term. You can test your search expression in the text that you see in the lower half of the screen.

To run the search, click on Show Results.

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The result page shows you a Quotation Reader, indicating where the quotations are when (auto)coding the data. If codings already exist at the quotation, those will also be shown.

Code Report

You find a report option in each browser at the top right-hand side in the ribbon.

In addition, predefined reports are available in the Query Tool under the Report button. If you hover over an option with your mouse, the screen tip explains what each of the report contains.

If there is no ribbon option, and you want to export quotations from a result of a query, look for the burger menu:

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Code Report (Continued)

Tables can be exported as Excel file.

Data Management

Saving in Atlas ti 9

To save a project, click on the Save icon in the Quick Access toolbar, or select File > Save.

To open a project, click on a project in the list of projects on the Welcome Screen, or if a project is already open, and you want to open another one, select File > Open.

Exporting with Atlas.ti 9

Name File &

Save to Pathway / Location

Click Export

Project can be stored on Dropbox, Hard drive, Email, NYU Box, Thumbdrive

Compatibility�MAC / PC

Atlas.ti 9 has three versions:

1)Atlas.ti 9 for Mac

2) Atlas.ti 9 for Windows.

3) Atlas Ti Web

You can transfer the project between the operating systems of Windows or Mac OS without having to convert the project.

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Working with Teams

To set-up a team project, you need to proceed as follows:

• 1. CREATE MASTER PROJECT:  One person sets up a Master Project and adds all documents.
• 2.  DISTRIBUTE MASTER PROJECT TO TEAM: This project needs to be saved, EXPORTED and distributed to all team members.
• 3.  EACH TEAM MEMBER CREATES AN INDIVIDUAL USER NAME:  When starting Atlas.ti, you will be asked to create a user account. If you want to change it later or need to switch user, see the SWITCH USER / USER MANAGEMENT option on the Home Tab.
• 4. MERGING SUB-PROJECTS: To merge the projects of each of the individual participant (sub-projects) on the research team with the master project, each team member EXPORTS their project sub-project and sends it to the project administrator with the mater project for merging.
• 5.  PROJECT MERGE:   To merge a HU/Project, this feature is available under FILE in the Backstage area.  All items that are the same will be merge, all items that are different will be added.
• For more instruction: https://guides.nyu.edu/QDA

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��NYU Community�Access to Atlas.Ti software

NYU Data Service

• NYU Bobst Library, 5^th Floor, Data Lab
• Sun-Sat 7am-1am (Same as Library Stacks)
• Reserve a Computer Work Station

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NYU Virtual Computer Lab (VCL)

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• NYU Current Students
• NYU Home >> Research Tab >>VCL

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Using Atlas.ti in the VCL

• NYU’s VCL is hosted on Amazon web services (a web-based app streaming service)
• To access Atlas.ti, you will need to log on to NYU Home, type “VCL” in the search box, and then click “GO”. (Please note: the VCL works best on Firefox or Chrome)
• Click Atlas.ti to be connected to a server.
• Upload your files to the VCL: click on the folder icon at the top of your screen, then click “Upload.”
• A dialog box will appear that will allow you to upload your.
• Export your project: click on the folder icon at the top of your screen (as before) and select the project you wish to download then click “Download.”
• For further instructions on how to upload/download projects: https://nyu.service-now.com/servicelink/kb_search.do?id=041213019263437

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�Purchasing Atlas.ti (Aug 2020)

STUDENT LICENSE

• Two-year Student License: $99
• Semester License: $51
• Student/Semester Extension License (two years): $89
• Apply for Student license: https://atlasti.com/students/
• Web-only Monthly License: 10$

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LIFE-TIME LICENSE

• Each purchase includes a license to install on two machines.
• Single user license: $ 670

More Atlas.ti

Atlas.ti - Help Menu

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Atlas. ti--Video Tutorials can be found here: https://atlasti.com/video-tutorials/

Atlas.ti Manual Online

Atlas ti. Folder with Data and Other Materials NYU Data Services

Email Data Services: data.services@nyu.edu

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