Academic Consulting

2011 has been a busy year for Academic Consulting thus far, with our involvement in two large-scale public submission projects – both related to the planning and rebuilding process following the Christchurch earthquakes.

The first project saw us collaborating with Christchurch City Council, assisting them in analysing the public submissions they received as part of their 'Share an Idea' campaign (http://www.shareanidea.co.nz). Over 100,000 ideas were submitted via a range of formats – from formal written submissions through to voicemail messages, ideas jotted on post-it notes, Lego models and video clips (visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK5AoTXjN34 to watch a sample of the videos submitted by the children of Christchurch). Data was collated by Christchurch City Council and sent up to the team at Academic Consulting, where it was analysed with the assistance of NVivo 9 Server (a version of the software that allows multiple users to work on one project at the same time). This involved entering and coding each of the submissions at various themes which had been identified by Council staff. Data was sent back down to the Council team at the end of each day, and the information was used to inform the draft City Centre Plan (http://www.centralcityplan.org.nz/net/what-is-in-the-plan.aspx). This project was a good example of the capabilities of NVivo, and was recently discussed in the QSR International newsletter (http://www.qsrinternational.com/news_whats-new_detail.aspx?view=443). In addition, it was an excellent opportunity for staff at Academic Consulting to extend their skills in working with data across a range of formats, namely in the analysis of audio and video submissions. We also valued the collaborative relationship developed with the Council, an important element of the success of the project particularly in light of the tight timeframes involved.

While the Christchurch City Council project focused specifically on the rebuild of the CBD, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) was responsible for developing a wider recovery strategy for the region (http://cera.govt.nz/recovery-strategy). Public submissions were once again sought, and thousands of responses received. As well as analysing the submissions with the aid of NVivo 9 Server, Academic Consulting was responsible for writing a series of three reports for CERA, two of which are available on their website.

Overall, both projects presented interesting and diverse challenges – and, as a company, Academic Consulting valued the opportunity to be involved in research with clear links to the development of important and evolving local and central Government policy.

QSR International has released an update of NVivo 9.  Version 9.2 contains a number of new features, including additional language versions (French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Simplified Chinese) and a new analysis tool (Framework matrices). For more information on this, see: http://www.qsrinternational.com/news_whats-new_detail.aspx?view=431.

The free update can be downloaded from the QSR website. Note that, as with previous updates, NVivo 9.2 will allow you to open projects created in previous versions of the software (e.g. NVivo 9.1 and NVivo 8) -  but NVivo 9.2 projects will not be able to opened in these older versions. If you are working in research teams, therefore, make sure that all members of the team update at the same time.

Our training brochure for Semester Two 2011 is now available. To browse for a course visit the course schedule or download the training brochure as a PDF.

QSR NVivo 9 has now been released and our Director, Dr Lyn Lavery, has been enthusiastically demonstrating the software as part of our popular seminar series. Staff at Academic Consulting have been looking forward to the release of this version - having already taken part in the beta-testing for NVivo 9 we have a good feel for the new capabilities and are now enjoying using NVivo 9 on our own projects. The experience with beta-testing has meant that we've been able to hit the ground running with our NVivo 9 training, details of which can be viewed by clicking the links to the following: Introduction to NVivo 9: Working with Data, Introduction to NVivo 9: Extending Analyses, and Upgrade to NVivo 9.

So what does NVivo 9 have to offer? Our favourite new features are the ability to work with spreadsheets and databases (wonderful for those of us that are mixed methods researchers), compatibility with EndNote and Zotero (making NVivo 9 a much improved tool for writing literature reviews), and extended text searching and visualisation tools. Also new is a server based version of the software, which enables multiple team members to work on a project at once. This was the version the team at Academic Consulting beta-tested, and we were really impressed by the fact that all five of us were able to work on a single project at one time. Other changes to be aware of are that the interface has moved from being menu-based to using a ribbon (similar to Office 2007) and that free nodes and tree nodes are no longer distinguished from each other (it is still possible to create these, but they both fall under the category of 'nodes'). Another change involves the way attributes and the casebook are set-up — these are now 'classifications' that are viewed in 'classification sheets'.

If you have an existing NVivo 8 project, there will be no issues upgrading — simply open your NVivo 8 project in NVivo 9. In terms of accessing a license for NVivo 9 - all site licensed institutions will now have received their copy of the software. It will be up to each institution as to when they make this available to their staff. For those that can't access a copy through their institution, a free demonstration version is available from the QSR International website.

For more information regarding the differences between NVivo 8 and 9, please refer to the QSR website, where there is (amongst other things) an excellent PDF resource detailing the differences. There are also YouTube videos available for those who are new to NVivo and those who are upgrading. Happy viewing!