Using Atlas.ti— An Introduction —

Ant Edwards, Loughborough Universitya.w.edwards@lboro.ac.uk

November 24, 2009

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Contents

1 Introduction 3

2 Getting the audio file in the correct format 32.1 Getting *.dss files into *.wma format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

3 Getting video data in the correct format 53.1 From the camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

4 Getting the footpedal working on a Mac 5

5 Setting up Atlas.ti for your analysis 65.1 Setting up a file structure for Atlas.ti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65.2 Importing the files into the HU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

6 Using Altas.ti to transcribe 86.1 Creating an empty document to transcribe into . . . . . . . . 86.2 Associating the transcript and audio files . . . . . . . . . . . . 96.3 Transcribing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96.4 After transcribing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

7 Coding the transcript 107.1 Before you code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107.2 Quotations, comments, codes and memos . . . . . . . . . . . . 127.3 Linking quotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137.4 When to use what . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

8 Searching within the data 148.1 The code manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148.2 Use the Query tool to make code families and supercodes . . . 15

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1 Introduction

This document is a rough introduction to using Atlas.ti with your researchdata. This data might be:

• Interview transcripts

• Audio recordings

• Video recordings

• Scans of tasks/test/working sheets

• Any combination of the above

For the purposes of this document I will assume that you have recordedan interview using a MEC dictaphone or camcorder, have not yet transcribedit, and wish to eventually code the data in some way using a Mac. If you arein the stage where you already have the transcribed document produced bysome other piece of software (such as the Olympus DSS player software anda text editor) or a professional service, skip to Section 5.

2 Getting the audio file in the correct format

The MEC owns two dictaphones:

• DM-20

• DS-40

Figure 1: DM-20 (left) and DS-40 (right)

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The DS-40 has more capacity (both players have many hours capacity),and stores its files in a more user-friendly format, *.wma. Atlas.ti can usethis format directly. If you’re using the DS-40, you can skip to the Section4.

The DM-20 is older, but in my opinion has better sound quality due toits external condenser microphone. If you’re recording in a noisy environ-ment use this one. It records into *.dss format, which involves more faffing,however.

2.1 Getting *.dss files into *.wma format

One option is to buy a piece of software for your Mac called Switch. Thiscosts about £18 and can be bought at http://www.nch.com.au/switch/

plus.html. This is quick and easy, but there is a free alternative we haveset up, using the staff computer in A0.39.

1. First get the *.dss file onto a memory stick, external HDD or CDR

2. Log into the MEC staff computer in A0.39 (it is the only black one andhas a “for staff use only” sticker on it)

3. Open up Olympus DSS player (Start→ All Programs→ Olympus DSSplayer)

4. Open up the folder containing your audio file and drag the file into anyof the Olympus DSS player’s folders

5. Click on the file to select it (it will be highlighted in blue) and on theFile menu, select “convert to WAV file”. Select somewhere sensible tosave the file

6. Next, open up Creative Audio Converter (Start → All Programs →Creative → Creative MediaSource → Creative Audio Converter)

7. Click on “add file”, and select the WAV file you just created

8. Select the file and click on “set destination format”

9. Select WMA; the rest of the default settings are fine

10. Note where the file will be saved (change this if you want), and clickon the convert button

11. You now have your audio file in *.wma format, just as if it was producedby the DS-40

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3 Getting video data in the correct format

3.1 From the camera

There are two options here. Both require a version of Quicktime Pro on yourMac (about £20), or alternative software.

1. Use iMovieHD to get the file from the camera, and then use QuicktimePro to encode it in *.wmv format.

2. Use the media-suite in room A1.32 to get the file from the camera.This has the benefit of not tying your computer up for the length ofthe interview, and creating a high-quality version of the data whichiMovieHD can not do. This will produce a huge *.avi file which youwill need to get to your computer. A usual USB flash disk is notsufficient here, you will need a large external HTFS-formatted drive.Then use quicktime pro to convert this file to a *.wmv file.

4 Getting the footpedal working on a Mac

You must first download “USB overdrive” from www.usboverdrive.com/ orthe maths servers. The (free) trial version is sufficient for our purposes. Youwill only have to set it up once, then each time you plug in the footpedal itwill recognise it, regardless of which USB socket you use.

Once installed, plug the USB into any socket (it doesn’t have to be ahigh-powered one), and go to apple menu → system preferences, then selectUSB overdrive. For ten seconds an advert will appear, but then you can click“later” and it will go.

1. Make sure “joystick” is selected in the leftmost drop-down menu (asfar as USB overdrive is concerned the footpedal is a joystick!)

2. Press the leftmost pedal button (marked REW). The window will au-tomatically select “button 17”

3. On the rightmost drop-down menu select “keystroke”, click on the boxbeneath and then press the F8 key on your keyboard. In this box F8should now appear1

4. In the same way bind the top pedal (aka button 19) to F8

1If you’re lucky enough to have one of the modern ‘flat’ mac keyboards, you’ll have toalso press down the “fn” key

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5. In the same way bind the right pedal (aka button 18) to F4

Other options on the USB overdrive settings should be

• Tick the box next to Overdrive Enabled

• Cursor “don’t move” for each button, with sensitivity at 70%

You can now close USB overdrive and the system preferences and forgetthey exist.

IMPORTANT

Whenever you subsequently plug in the USB footpedal it is important thatyou select “connect to Mac” if asked, even if this seems counterintuitive.

5 Setting up Atlas.ti for your analysis

If you haven’t already, install Atlas.ti into the parallels virtual machine partof your mac. This entails

• Open up parallels

• Insert the Atlas.ti CD

• With Parallels selected, go to Devices → CD/DVD ROM → RealCD/DVD ROM → default. The virtual PC will then be able to ‘see’the CD and you can install normally.

The first time you run Atlas.ti there will be plenty of updates. These willask to download and install themselves after you close the “tip of the day”window, and you should let them do their thing. You must be logged in withadministrator privileges for the updates to install properly.

After the updates have been installed, you can start Altas.ti again. Itwill automatically open up a blank Hermeneutic Unit (HU). This HU is likea directory that will keep all the documents in tow.

5.1 Setting up a file structure for Atlas.ti

The first time I used Atlas.ti I saved and opened files in many locations, andit became impossible to keep track of what was where. I strongly suggestyou mirror the following file structure in figure 2.

So in other words save your HU in a folder, and then use sub-folders foreach file type. Now put the files you wish to use in the sub-folders (you candrag them from a Mac to PC window).

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A master folder

A folder of audio

files

A folder of video

filesA folder for

transcriptions

A folder of other

similar things

Save the main HU in here

Figure 2: A typical Atlas.ti file structure

5.2 Importing the files into the HU

Primary document

A primary document (PD) is a raw file, which Atlas.ti will not change. Ex-amples of primary documents are transcripts, audio and video data, *.pdf,and google map data.

Adding your files as primary documents

With the HU open, select primary documents (see fig 3), and add each filein turn (see fig 4).

Figure 3: Primary documents

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Figure 4: New Primary documents

The files will now appear in the Primary Document manager, with IDnumbers. Don’t worry too much about which number is which document, thiscan be changed later by dragging and dropping the files inside the manager.

6 Using Altas.ti to transcribe

A word of warning

You may find it easier to use the Olympus DSS Player and a word processor tocreate transcripts. Personally I do. This is because the DSS Player softwarehas an automatic back option, where the audio is moved back x secondseach time you pause it. This can make transcriptions much quicker, becausethe reason for pausing the audio is usually that you missed the last thingthat was said. As far as I can fathom Atlas.ti does not have this feature. Ifyou have transcribed in this manner, import the transcription as a primarydocument into Altas.ti in *rtf format.

6.1 Creating an empty document to transcribe into

Outside of Atlas.ti in Windows, go to the transcriptions folder you createdearlier, right click and select new, then text document. Rename it so thatit is called something you will remember (usually best to make its namecorrespond with your audio file). Import this file as a primay document intoAtlas.ti.

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6.2 Associating the transcript and audio files

• First open up the audio file in Altas.ti by selecting it from the drop-down menu. It will begin to play, so pause it.

• From the A-docs menu select “edit association”

• In the Association editor that appears, on the Association menu select“insert primary document”

• Now select the blank transcription file from the primary documentsdrop down menu, and again select “insert primary document”

The audio and transcription PDs are now linked. This means we canlisten to the audio at the same time as typing in the document.

6.3 Transcribing

First click on the pen icon, which will turn on edit mode (so you can type).You can use the footpedal to control the audio.

The right pedal

This starts and pauses the recording

The left pedal

This puts a marker in the text which ties the transcript to the time thatthe player is currently at. This allows you to synchronize the audio to thetranscript2

The top pedal

This is used to name the markers automatically based on the piece of textthey transcribe

6.4 After transcribing

Once your document is transcribed you can click on the chain icon in theAssociation Editor to keep the audio sychronized with the transcript. Thismeans that wherever your cursor is, the audio jumps to the nearest markerpoint. If you switch on Karaoke mode and play the transcript, it will highlighteach line as it happens.

2this is the most useful feature of transcribing using Altas.ti!

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7 Coding the transcript

Once you have your transcript, quite exactly how you code it depends on yourresearch questions and what you hope to achieve as a result of the coding.

There are two main types of coding3:

1. “Open coding”, where you are using your data to generate theory

2. Pre-determined coding, when you are seeing to what extent a theorycan be applied to your data

In terms of the mechanics of what you actually do in Atlas.ti, both typesof coding are similar, so I’m going to assume that you are doing type 1, opencoding.

7.1 Before you code

Although I’m going to explain the best I can how to code using Altas.ti, Ithink they do it pretty well on the website. In short I recommend you watchthe following video tutorials:

Coding basics

http://www.atlasti.com/screencasts/coding basics.htm

Creating quotations

http://www.atlasti.com/screencasts/creating quotes.htm

The coding window

When you are coding, there are two panes that are open. On the left is yourtranscript document, and on the left there is an initially blank section calledthe margin. This is where objects and codes you attach to your text appear.Don’t worry if when you start coding the margin looks a mess, you will bethe only person to see it, and it is not useful to ever print out the documentwith the margin objects (otherwise you might as well have done it all byhand in the first place).

3what you actually may find yourself doing is a combination of the two

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Make a new quotation Enlarge/Shrink a quotation

New code

Add codefrom list

Recode

New memo

Figure 5: Tools you can use when coding

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7.2 Quotations, comments, codes and memos

Quotations

Quotations are the building blocks of Atlas.ti. You can’t really do any codingwithout them. They are portions of text that you attach stuff to, and theirnearest parallel is a highlighter pen. To create a quotation, select a portionof text and click the create quotation button (see fig 5).

If required, you can attach some text to a quotation. This is calleda comment, and may be used to put it in context, or to rephrase what’shappening. To create a comment double click on the code’s brace (on theright “margin” area), and then click on the box that appears. More generalcomments that might be usefully accessed elsewhere in the HU are betterplaced in memos, however (see next section).

Codes and memos

These are text-based objects that you attach to quotations. They can beused in any way you like, but I suggest you use codes like sticking post-itnotes in the margin, and use memos like you would a pad of paper.

Codes are used as markers, so at any time you can call up all instancesof a particular code (with the quotations if required), or make ‘logical’ com-binations of codes (so for instance, all instance of x and y without z). Itis best to make codes as short as possible, and to not make them (a) toospecific, or (b) too general! In other words, when you make a code it is bestif (a) you think it likely that at some point somewhere else the same codemight apply, and (b) it is actually meaningful. A good way of testing thisis to look down your codes and check to see if you can explain to someoneelse what they are, and when they should be used. It is important that eachcode should only carry one ‘message’, so if your quotation is an instance ofsomeone doing x by method y, I would create two codes, x and y, and attacheach to the quotation.

Memos are the equivalent to keeping a notebook next to the computer.They are better than such a notebook because (a) you can attach them to oneor more quotations (b) they are automatically date stamped, and (c) you cansearch within them. When you create a new memo it is given a default namebased on the current data and how many memos you have already madethat day — I strongly suggest that you rename the memo to something moremeaningful4. If a quotation is selected when you make the memo then thatquotation is automatically attached to it, otherwise you create what is known

4It is better to rename from within the memo editor, otherwise strange things happen.

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to Atlas.ti as a “free memo”, to which you can later attach quotations.You can’t attach codes to memos in Atlat.ti, so it’s worth bearing that

in mind too.

Even more memos

If you find that you don’t have enough variety in the objects you can attachto quotations, it is possible to define different types of memo. To do this goto Extras → Preferences → General Preferences → memos. Here you canadd “global memo types”. You could have a type for general reflections, andanother type for specific comments about the data, for instance.

7.3 Linking quotations

It is common in an interview for someone to make reference to somethingthey said earlier, or to anticipate something that is done or said later. Simi-larly, someone might remark upon or contradict something said in an earlierinterview, or about a document that you have imported into Altas.ti as a PD.To make these links pertinent one can create hyperlinks between quotations.To do this:

1. Select the first quotation (the one that is actively referencing or refer-ring to something else

2. Click on the “make hyperlink start anchor”

3. Navigate to the other quotation and select it

4. Click on the “make hyperlink target anchor”

5. Select the type of reference (there are various default options whichappear including “explains”, “contradicts”, “continued by”)

7.4 When to use what

You may have noticed that there are three different text objects you canattach to a quotation: comments, codes and memos. This gets more compli-cated when I tell you that you can also make a comment on a code also.

It’s important therefore that before you code you have a rough idea ofwhich of these objects you plan to use, and how you are going to use them.Two possible framework are:

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1.

• Comments are used to explain why I did what I did, in terms of thecoding only (why is this code used, why did I select this quotation etc,rather than comments about why did I do something in the interview).

• Memos are used for theoretical musings, and reflections on what hap-pened in the interviews. They are things that I plan to review afterthe initial coding, and that I don’t want to forget.

• Codes are for what I have evidence for, either what happened or whatsomeone said they were thinking/doing

2.

• Comments are used for objective comments about the data, like a datareduction

• Memos are used for subjective comments about the data.

• Codes are for what I think may happen more than once in the data

In my coding, I attempted to use framework 2, but found that I was reallyusing 1.

8 Searching within the data

Once you have coded your document, you can output lists of codes, andperform code queries on the data.

8.1 The code manager

This allows you to view and manipulate codes you have created. Double clickon a code to see the quotation(s) that are attached to it.

Figure 6: Click on the button that looks like this to access the code manager

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Calling up the quotations associated with a code

Open the code manager and double click on the code. If there is only onequotation associated, the main window will jump to that code. If there aremore than one then you will be presented with a list.

Outputting the quotations associated with a code, or a list of codes

In the code manager, select the code(s) (hold down control to select morethan one) and select the option you want from the Output menu. From thismenu you can output a list of all codes, output a list of quoatations (with orwithout comments attached) related to the selected codes, etc etc.

8.2 Use the Query tool to make code families and su-percodes

When you wish to make more general codes (I call them meta-codes, andI have heard them called Axial codes), there are two options from withinAltas.ti: Code Families and Supercodes. First I describe the process ofmerging codes, which is when you want to combine two or more codes underone name.

Merging codes

Suppose you have two codes, Code A and Code B. During your analysis youdecide that all the quotations that are labelled Code B can be subsumedunder code A. To do this in Atlas.ti you need to:

1. Go to the code manager

2. Select Code B

3. Right Click on Code B and select Merge Codes

4. From the list given, select Code A

Note that Code B is automatically deleted after this.

Code Families

Code families are groups of codes. A code can belong to more than onefamily at any time.

To create a code family:

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1. Navigate to the code manager, and click on the Yellow square at theend (this opens the code family manager)

2. Create a new code family (rightmost toolbar icon)

3. From the bottom right pane, select all the codes you want to be partof the family

Note that your code family does not appear on the main code list, but itcan be treated as a code in certain situations.

Supercode

Supercodes are where the power of Atlas.ti over pen-and-paper methods isseen. Using the code manager we can create logical queries and record theresults as a supercode, which dynamicaly changes as our codes change.

When you make a supercode, you need to have a rough idea of the logicalstatus of the query you are making, for instance, say we have codes A, B andC and want to create a supercode that records all instances where A and Bcoincide, together with all instances of C. Logically this is

(A ∧B) ∨ C

To make a supercode:

1. Open the code manager

2. Go to the Output menu → Query tool

3. In pairs, double click codes then the logical operation required (in ourexample, first double click code A, then B, then click the vee button

4. Continue until the logical combination is complete

5. Click on Create Supercode

Supercodes are listed with normal codes, and dynamically update eachtime the code manager is opened. Note that you can not add a supercode toa quotation for obvious reasons.

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