Unacceptable.In May 2017, I was privileged to present at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry on 'Popular Techniques for Visualizing Qualitative Data'. This blog post is a summary of that presentation. As a PhD student I do not have extra funding lying around, and this is coming out of my own pocket. Upgrading the software on a trial basis should NOT prevent users from reverting to previous versions, this is a very poorly designed update.
NVivo has been unable to support me in solving this issue (they suggested I just use another free trial on a different computer - like most of us stuck working from home, I do not have a backup computer), and so I am forced to buy, at full cost, a year's subscription to a software which I am thoroughly frustrated with. Now that the trial has run out, I must purchase a new subscription in order to have access to my project, despite the fact that I do not think the new version is an improvement from the last IN ANY WAY. I tried doing so, and all my coding references and most of my annotations were lost in the process, so I was forced to continue using the new software. Not only did it NOT fix the performance issues (it was still VERY slow, almost unmanageably so), but I found out after a couple long days of coding that YOU CANNOT REVERT BACK TO PREVIOUS FORMATS.
My university provides a license to NVivo 12, which I was using up till recently, when I upgraded using a free trial of R1 because I was experiencing very slow performance coding PDFs, despite the fact that I double checked that my system requirements were adequate.ĭO NOT UPGRADE TO THE NEW SOFTWARE. I use this software for my research regularly, and appreciate its rich features. Nvivo may not be as good as MaxQDA for helping researchers build interrelationships among the data.
If you are doing a PhD (which could take many years), you'll have to purchase a full version of the software which is really rather pricey. The student license, while cheaper than the other major QDA vendors, is only valid for 12 months. This is a drawback and restricts use to the user's computer only.
It does not offer a portable version that users can use when travelling or in the field on someone else's computer.
Because good tutorials can be found easily, users will have less trouble learning how to use this powerful program The user discussion forum is also a useful place for learning how to use the program and to apply the software to specific research needs. Many tutorials can be found online and via the MaxqDA website. Flat coding prevents imposing a structure on data while hierarchical coding can help researchers find patterns in the document, assists with analysis and building models. Each coded segment in Nvivo called a "node", can have a set of custom properties that include instance-specific values can be either flat, or hierarchically arranged, each of which has certain advantages. This grounded approach will allow users to build an understanding of the underlying themes in the data. This is important for exchanging data on research teams whose members will be using both Windows and Mac computers.Ĭolleagues have often commented on how Nvivo is easy to use for content and thematic analysis.īy using Nvivo to define codes and tag documents with the codes as you move through the document. The student license is not as expensive as a full license but after a year, they are required to buy a license at the retail price. NVivo offers three packages, Plus, Pro, and Mac. Team members can use the multi-level ‘undo’ function whenever a need arises. Since NVivo is cloud-based, team members do not have to worry about losing their project. The Windows version allows bigger groups. This means a group of 5 or fewer members can work in collaboration with one project. NVivo also allows Cloud collaboration through small teams of up to 5 members. NVivo auto-codes and identifies themes and sub-themes, regardless of data volume and complexity. NVivo integrates with bibliographic and referencing software like Endnote and Mendeley for easy citations and references. NVivo Integration allows Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook files to imported to NVivo, using free add-ins. It is easy to import data from other programs, including Survey Monkey, EndNote, RefWorks, Zotero, Mendeley, MS Outlook, EverNote, OneNote. NVivo allows researchers to find correlations and relationships between themes, people, and places in one software.