Create a folder in your Etna drive at
\\netapp.bcis.bates.edu\etna\Classes\Winter2025-ENVR316A\Students\[your username]. Your new NVivo project will go here.
Start NVivo and create user profile, if using NVivo on this computer for the first time. Enter your initials.
Select New Project on the opening screen. Click on Browse to find your Etna folder, and save the project there.
In the top menu, select Import > Files. You can import multiple files at once. Do not select "Create a case for each imported file." Imported files should show up on the left under Files.
Cases are your unit of analysis. Often, cases are people. In this case, we are comparing companies, so the cases are companies.
Classification is the set of information that you want to record about each case.
Click on Create > Case Classification and add the default Organization classification.
We are going to add an additional attribute for type of company. Right-click on Organization in the Case Classification pane on the left, select New Attribute, and name it Type. Under the Values tab, add values for Mainstream and B Corp.
On the left, right-click on Cases > Cases > New Case. Give it a name. Under Attribute Values, select Case Classification > Organization, then add whatever attribute values apply. Repeat for your other case.
You may have files where parts of each file belong to different cases (e.g. a focus group with multiple people talking). But you can also assign an entire file to a case.
On the left, click on Files. You should see the file that you imported earlier. With Ctrl+click, select all the files that belong to the same case. right-click and select Code Whole Files. In the Select Code Items menu, expand the Cases folder and select the appropriate Case, then Code Selection. You can also create cases as you go by selecting the option under Create New on the right.
Still in the Files view, you can open any of the files to apply codes. Double-click on any file and you will see it in the viewer. From here, highlight any text that is related to a theme of interest. Right-click on the highlighted section and select Code Selection. You can create a new code under Create New: Top-Level Code, and as you create more codes you can find them here in the Codes folder.
Once a code is created, you can apply to a different passage in the same way, or you can open the Codes window and drag and drop highlighted passages into the code.
Create and apply at least two codes in at least one file from each case.
Once you have applied codes, NVivo gives you many options for investigating your data, combining codes, cases, and attributes.
In the window for a given file, click on the icon for stripes at the top. When this is turned on, you will see visually where codes have been applied to different parts of the file.
Crosstabs allow you to see the intersection of cases and codes. Go to Explore > Query > Crosstab. Select Crosstab codes against Attributes, drag and drop codes of interest into the Codes box, and select Attribute 1 to be Type. This will count how many times each codes appears in files from cases of each value of Type.
