Today Verbi merges it’s two locations and reunites all it’s departments under one roof at the Charlottenburg Innovation Center (CHIC) in Berlin. From now on all our MAXQDA specialists resides in one location again. We are very excited for the new possibilities Berlin is offering MAXQDA with it’s location-specific advantages, like working next door to universities and start up software companies.

From now on you can reach us here:

Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Straße 1

10625 Berlin  

Tel.: +49 (0)30 59 00 833 60

FAX: +49 (0)30 59 00 833 61 

E-Mail: info@maxqda.de

Import qualitative and quantitative data from spreadsheet

There are many situations, in which standardized data is needed in addition to your qualitative data. Especially when the researcher is aiming for a complex research design, a combination of quantitative and qualitative factors can be extremely helpful. In the case of online surveys, the collected data are often displayed in spreadsheets, which include responses in text form as well as variables, such as age or place of residence. With MAXQDA, you can simply import all of these data at once through the Import documents from spreadsheet feature.

Importing quantitative and qualitative data from a table is very easy. Your Excel spreadsheet only has to be structured in the following way: each row represents a document, and each column represents a text answer or a statistical value. The first two columns contain the keywords “text group” and “text name”. The other columns can be assigned any name. Columns containing variables need to be marked with a “$” in front of their name.

Here is an example of a table before importing it to MAXQDA:

This way you can, for example, assign each of your interviews to the city in which it was conducted and later compare the results from different cities in MAXQDA.
Text answers are coded automatically with the column header, and these codes are added to the list of codes. The documents are assigned the respective value of the variable from the variable columns.

Take a look at our Tips of the Months archive for more tips.

Do you want to be able to show your MAXQDA projects to other people, so you can discuss your work with other researchers or discuss steps of your analysis with your team without allowing for changes to be made? With the free MAXQDA Reader, you can do just that.

Simply download and install MAXQDA Reader, and you’ll be able to view and show off your projects. The Reader allows you to access search functions as well as all imported documents and memos. Plus, you can still use a range of analysis features that our QDA software offers. You can, for example, use the visual tools like the Document Portrait, Code Matrix Browser, and MAXMaps. You can also export aspects of your project, like the code system or your retrieved segments. Just download the program from our website, and you’ll be able to view and show your research and explain your analysis and interpretations of the data. MAXQDA Reader offers the same intuitive user interface as MAXQDA, only without the editing and coding options, so you don’t have to worry about your data being changed.

Take a look at our Tips of the Months archive for more tips.

Maybe you are one of those people who, after importing their documents into MAXQDA, like to read through them first and highlight important passages without coding them yet.

For this purpose, MAXQDA offers the “highlight coding” function which allows you to highlight/color code passages in the text, making it easy to locate them again later on. There are five different colors with which you can color code: green, blue, yellow, red, and magenta. The colors used for highlighting are also available as individual codes in the “list of codes”. This provides you with a quick overview of the most important passages of the text.

Highlight coding in MAXQDA is this simple: Activate the highlight coding toolbar via “Toolbar” > “Highlight coding” and start coding your text. Highlight relevant passages in the text, then click on one of the colors. You can also drag the toolbar to the center of the screen for easier access (with the option of switching to a vertical toolbar view). This makes going through your text easy and efficient.

After you have finished color coding, the selected colors will appear as codes in the “list of codes”, so that individual passages can be displayed once the document and its codes have been activated. For example, if you have chosen green to represent hope and blue to represent responsibility, you can see the relevant text passages at a glance. Now you can go through the passages again and convert the temporary color codes of individual passages (or only parts of a passage) into final codes. You can also copy all text passages at once to a different code.

Take a look at our Tips of the Months archive for more tips.

Automatic Project Backups in MAXQDA

Since Release (R081111) MAXQDA includes the great new option to automatically back up your project files. You decide how often and where on your computer you want to back your project file up to and MAXQDA does the work for you, so you don’t have to remember.
To take a look at this new feature, make sure your MAXQDA is updated and open the options menu (“Project” > “Options”).

You can change where you want your backup project files to be stored and how often you want your projects to be backed up. If you don’t want to use the automatic backups you can just turn the feature off right here by unchecking the box next to “Automatically back up projects”. If you choose to backup your project every 14 days, MAXQDA will remind you after 14 days and ask if you want to make the backup now. If your answer is yes, a copy of your project will be stored at the chosen location.

Please be aware that the automatic backup cannot replace the safety of regularly storing a copy of your projects at an external storage space (e.g. if your computer breaks down).

MAXQDA @ APHA 2011

We once again had a great time exhibiting at the annual conference of the American Public Health Association in Washington, DC from oct 29th – nov 2nd. The conference entailed four exciting and busy days of meeting many of the 13,000 participants of the largest gathering of public health professionals in the world.

It was great to see that for so many health professionals MAXQDA is their first choice when it comes to QDA software and to hear about the interesting and diverse health projects in which MAXQDA is currently being used.

Lexical Search and Autocoding

It is easy to search for words or strings in MAXQDA and to autocode the search results. You can search within documents as well as within code memos. The search result is a detailed overview of where the search term appears in your documents and memos. Now you can apply a code to the relevant sections. You can decide whether you want to autocode only the search string, the sentence or even the whole paragraph.
With the lexical search (“Analysis” > “Lexical search”) you have the option of typing in your own search strings. Here you can select from a number of settings, such as searching for words with a specific word stem.

After clicking on „Run search“, a new window with a list of hits appears. In order to start autocoding, click on the icon “Autocode” and then choose a code in the new window.

Please note: you can only use codes that appear in the tool bar quick list (“Edit Mode”). Depending on your project, you can now choose to view and code the passages which include your search string individually or as a complete sentence or paragraph.
The search and the coding can be performed with an unlimited number of words or strings. The „Retrieved Segments“ show you the contexts in which your search term appears within your documents and memos. This function is thus an effective and efficient way to get an overview of your text material and memos.

For further information on Lexical Search and Autocoding please see our manuals as well as our online tutorial.

Take a look at our Tips of the Months archive for more tips.

10% off the new Science II foot switch

	Our long-time partner audiotranscription.de has recently developed a new foot switch, the Science II, for use with the transcription software tools f4 and f5. Available from October 2011 it is small and can be used at every computer via plug and play for both transcription programmes f4 (from version 4.2) and f5 (from version 1.5.5). The main difference to the yellow European favourite “Science” is the fact that is does not need to be programmed according to your operating system. This adds to its versatility as the ideal rental switch.

It is very easy to press and thus goes easier on your foot during long transcription sessions. Keep it pressed to play the recording, lifting your foot stops it. Press again, and it re-plays the last seconds of the recording before continuing with the recording. In order to rewind the recording, step on the switch repeatedly in quick succession. Transcripts created with f4 or f5 can be easily imported into MAXQDA including all of your time stamps. This means that while analyzing your data with MAXQDA you can quickly switch back into your audio files at any time. As a MAXQDA user, you will get an additional 10% off the already low price of 59 Euro (79 US-Dollar). You will also receive an extended three-year warranty.

To receive 10% off your purchase, please contact info@audiotranscription.de

Additional 5% off when buying or upgrading MAXQDA

If you decide to purchase MAXQDA or upgrade to MAXQDA 10 between September 30th and October 20th, 2011, you’ll get a total of 15% off the starting price of the Science II foot switch. Just tell audiotranscription.de your MAXQDA order number when you order the foot switch to receive your discount.
To receive 15% off your purchase, please contact info@audiotranscription.de and make sure to include your MAXQDA order number.

The exceptional export options in MAXQDA

It has always been important to us that you can easily move aspects of your MAXQDA projects into other programs for further analysis. To make this possible, we have incorporated a host of export options. Whether you want to export documents, retrieved segments, memos, the code system, code frequencies, or visual tool graphics, it’s all possible with a single click..

You can select from a wide range of formats in which to export your content: View project parts in an Excel spreadsheet, your retrieved segments in an HTML table, your variable lists in a statistics software, your coded segments in a text document, or the Code Matrix Browser as a graphic for a presentation. Export all your documents at once or print out your documents with the visualized coding stripes and memos. Just take a look at the “Project” > “Export” menu inside of MAXQDA to see and test out the many options you have to get your data out of MAXQDA.

New XML Export

All of your notes at your fingertips.

You might already use memos to jot down your thoughts while you analyze your qualitative data, to attach coding instructions to your code sytsem or to attach case summaries to your interviews.
Memos can be attached to any part of your data e.g. your codes, documents or be placed right inside a text document where MAXQDA will display them as little yellow post-it-notes. But did you know that you can also write down anything you want in a free memo that is not attached to any special part of your data?

The MAXQDA memo manager (“Memos”>”Memo-Manager”) is the easiest way to keep track of all of your memos and thoughts. Inside the memo manager all of your memos are organized in a table view, with columns for every possible information about this memo you might need (author, title, created, preview, attached to, memo type). This way you can easily organize, sort, search, open and export your memos in one single place. Looking for all the memos written by a certain person in a certain time frame? No problem, just click on the top of the columns to sort your memos any way you need to.

Convenient: If you click on a memo, MAXQDA jumps right into your documents and displays what part of which document you attached the memo to.

Use free memos to start writing your conclusions right inside of MAXQDA or use memos to communicate with your research team members, e.g. use exclamation point memos to flag important info everybody should read.

Take a look at our Tips of the Months archive for more tips.