Attach comments/memos to assigned codes

[FlorianPrimig]

I love the tool, use it in almost all my teaching by now and in a couple of projects!
There is one really important thing missing, however that I am surprised noone has mentioned here already: Comments. In MAXQDA, for example, you can assign comments to any code you assign, and especially in dispersed team settings with multiple coders, this feature is super helpful. Sometimes you just need to explain sth., note that there is an interesting relationship with another code or whatever, or you would want to specifically highlight a coded passage as a great example for the manuscript. Comments should hence be an additional column in the data (+ ofc in the export). Would that be implementable?

[kadewe]

Hi Florian, great to hear from you and your usage of OpenQDA.
Yes, we will implement this as it is a basic feature for
a full REFI compliance and we are already in discussion how to add this to the interface.
If you have ideas for the user interface implementation such as screenshots from other software implementations you like or dislike, please upload them here.

[FlorianPrimig]

This is how I did it once in a much simpler coding app. There I had an always visible comment window. But: There we only coded segments in sequence and not continuous interviews. For your app case that would require some additional connection between the data and the comment window in the background (e.g., attaching it to the selected lines at the moment). Easiest would probably be to add an option to comment when the window for code selection opens. That said, I think that window is already overcrowded with larger codebooks. And if you want to code and comment more than once for a selection you have to redo the coding multiple times (maybe allow for multiple selections of codes at once?). So perhaps a right-click option pop-up which shows all "assigned codes" in a text segment and there the option to "leave comment" would make the most sense?

[kadewe]

thanks, multiple selection and annotating at once… this is a new idea, we will think about it… does this happen often?

From a REFI-standard PoV memos and annotations are (see https://www.qdasoftware.org/project):

"annotations (comments attached to segments, codes, sources or links)
memos (writing spaces for analytical notes, either standalone or attached to sources and/or codes)"

therefore

1. memos can be self-sustained within a project (standalone),
2. memos can be attached to a source
3. memos can be attached to a code
4. annotations can be attached to segments (selections of text)
5. annotations can be attached to codes
6. annotations can be attached to sources
7. annotations can be attached to links between codes, segments, or memos

Also there are more standardized "document variables" so you can attach a variable "GENDER" to a document and then say "female" or "mixed" etc; or a variable "SCHOOLTYPE" and then say "junior highschool" or "senior highschool".

Hence we have to differentiate between memos (analytical text) and annotations (shorter text aka COMMENT).

Right now I think we already have both a project and a codebook and a code description directly, but they are not memos nor annotations.

We are currently thinking about how to make the user interface not to bloated by enabling memo writing at each of the entity levels described above. We need to have a CREATE/SHOW MEMO and CREATE/SHOW ANNOTATION button where necessary. Let's sketch!

For a flat csv-export we need to come up with a structure, probably all annotations attached to segments can be included in the main export file. A memo csv-export would be a table with all memos and their (optional) target. And an annotation csv-export would be a table with all attachements and their target, although links will be difficult.

[FlorianPrimig]

I think it depends a lot on the individual coding style and methodology, but for thematic coding or discourse analyses I would expect multiple code selections + comments being quite frequent because typically the context matters more with these methodologies. Or if you code for differnet RQs in one round where the same segment may carry meaning for two very different things. For me that is a really frequent use case. In a typical MAXQDA project I would end up having hundreds of comments sometimes especially in early coding rounds.
Your suggestions sound good!

[kadewe]

ok just to make clear i am understanding this right:

(1) I can have multiple annotations or memos to the same entity such as a code or a selection ( annotations|memos <<-> entity(code|selectio|…)

(2) I can add one individual memo or annotation to multiple entities ( memo <->> entity(code|selection|…) as for example i select 10 selections and then add 1 memo ("still not sure if i should not create a new code XYZ for this or if we should rename the code") or 1 annotation ("edge cases fir documentation"

is that right?

[jankapunkt]

Refi clearly defines 1) but 2) is not explicitly defined (but also not prohibited).