Researchware, Inc.

In "Methodological Issues in the Use of Published Cartoons as Data", researchers Ellen Giarelli of the School of Nursing's Center for Autism Epidemiology and Research and Lorraine Tulman, both of the University of Pennsylvania, explore the methodolocial approaches to analyzing images, especially cartoon images, as reflection of public opinion on issues of publich health. They cite HyperRESEARCH for its ability to catalog and code entire images or portions of images as a qualitative tool for image based source material.

The Center for Advancing Research & Communication (ARC), a joint effort of the National Science Fountation and University of Chicago, sponsors many important initiatives that support education researchers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). One such effort, on "Context, Culture & STEM Education", lead by principle investogator Sharon Nelson-Barber, explores the "ways in which American Indian students and their teachers in selected communities make use of local wisdom and heritage ethnomathematics and ethnoscience practices in STEM education."

We get a lot of potential customers looking for software that will automatically transcribe their audio or video files for them. HyperTRANSCRIBE software makes transcription a lot easier, however, it cannot transcribe automatically -- just as HyperRESEARCH can aid in coding & analyzing qualitative data, but it can't do your research for you.

We would love to be able to provide software that automatically transcribes speech. Unfortunately the technology to support speech recognition simply hasn't gotten to the point where automatic transcription of audio or video recordings can match, let alone surpass, the accuracy of (good) human transcriptions.

Researchware Cofounder, Dr. Sharlene Hesse-Biber will be presenting two Plenary Panels and presenting a paper at the Seventh International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI). In addition, Dr. Hesse-Biber will be conducting a Pre-Congress Workshop on May 19th in the 8:30 AM -11:30 AM session. The Seventh International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry will be held on Wednesday, May 18, 2011 to Saturday, May 21, 2011 and hosted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus in the United States. Please see our Events Of Interest section of our web site for more details.

Dr. Hesse-Biber's pre-conference workshop on the 19th is entitled "Mixed and Emergent Methods Workshop".

This workshop will introduce qualitatively driven approaches to mixed methods and emergent methods data collection and analysis. We will introduce the concept of "emergent" and "mixed" methods. We will employ a case study approach that introduces research projects that sucessfully apply both types of methods in their data collection and analysis strategies. We discuss the strengths and limitations of in applying these methods tools.

The second half of the workshop will demonstrate how to integrate the use of computerassisted software into a mixed methods and emergent research project. Computer assisted software can be an excellent way to manage large numbers of qualitative text, audio, video and graphic data as well as still images.

We will demonstrate how computer assisted software can carry out a grounded theory approach to the analysis of your data --from memoing to coding and retrieving your materials. It is also possible to conduct team work across geographical regions. We will explore how to carry out a specific mixed methods analysis including transforming your qualitative data into quantitative categories ( quantitizing ). We will also explore some of the methodological issues involved in employing software in your analysis. We will use HyperResearch, an easy to learn user friendly computer-assisted software package that analyzes qualitative data ( text, audio, video and graphics) as well as HyperTranscribe, a computer-assisted transcribing software tool (you can download a free demo of each product at researchware.com ). We will address the following in our data analysis portion of the workshop:

• What is your data analysis style?
• Before the workshop meets we ask you bring a short reflexive memo on this question that you would like to share with the group (I will call on volunteers to share their memo).
• We will provide a didactic exercise on finding your data analysis standpoint.
• We will take up some advanced features of the HyperResearch and HyperTranscribe program starting with the Hypothesis Tester and advanced coding and memo features, including the network diagramming. We will talk about transcription as a form of data analysis. In addition, we will demonstrate how HR software is used to integrate a mixed methods analysis and emergent methods analysis.

If you will be attending the ICQI conference, we are sure you will find Sharlene's session engaging and informative.