Re: NB4.5/NBW: Orbis or Ibid for ethnographical research project

[Dorothy Day <day>]

David,
        Since you already have experience with both Ibid and Orbis, I'd
recommend sticking with them. AskSam is just different, not particularly
better, and uses its own proprietary matter surrounding your data, which
makes it harder to use with NB. 
        Mark Szuchman advises Orbis, but there's no reason you can't
take your notes in the IbidPlus Fieldnotes template (customized to fit
your fieldwork) and then "Orbis" your datafiles for greater ease of
searching. Several members of this list use that combination for law
case files to manage a wide assortment of document types. The Fieldnotes
template was actually created by an ethnographer member of this list for
his own work (though I don't remember who).

        I don't know how familiar you are with dedicated qualitative
data analysis software, but in addition to Nudist and NVivo, you might
also check out Atlas/ti, another powerful package. For exhaustive
listings of QDA and other text analysis programs and links to demos you
can try out (including AskSam), see

        http://www.intext.de/TEXTANAE.HTM

You may find one there that assists you in coding your notes in a way
that suits your data and analysis style. 

Another good page is CAQDAS at Surrey, U.K. (sometimes very slow,
however):

        http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/caqdas/

Or try QualPage at U of Alberta:

        http://www.ualberta.ca/~jrnorris/qual.html

and its links to QDA software at

        http://www.ualberta.ca/~jrnorris/qda.html


                Dorothy



On Sun, 12 Dec 1999, David Mackinder wrote:

> I have been asked by a friend to work as a research assistant. One of
> the projects he has in mind is a piece of fieldwork centred on a
> charismatic Christian group and involving participant observation and
> interviews. Assuming that access is granted by the group's leaders, he
> will do the fieldwork and I'll probably be responsible for transcribing
> his audio cassettes and overall text management.
>     I'm a long-time Nota Bene user, but I've previously used Ibid(em)
> exclusively for bibliographical work and have barely used Orbis (save as
> a contact manager).
>     I know that there was a sample IbidPlus fieldnote database - how do
> Notabenieri of a sociological/anthropological/ethnographical bent rate
> this? Would it suffice? Or have you developed alternative templates
> using either Ibid or Orbis?
>     Alternatively, approaching this project from a non-NB direction, are
> there other software tools that suitably experienced list members would
> recommend? (I've got recent demos of Nudist and NVivo, and I've also
> seen EZ-text.)


*****
Dorothy Day                     School of Library & Information Science
day                                      Indiana University
*****
        "He also surfs who only sits and waits."

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