Here is a list of affordances we identified and developed into OneNote to adapt it to integrate every activity of the qualitative research process.
To check some examples have a look at our posts.
You can also read our paper ‘Using OneNote as a meta-tool across the qualitative research process’ for ECER 2105 (European Conference on Educational Research) for more details.
| Qualitative research activities | OneNote affordances
|
| Collaborating | Access to pages can be conditional or full
Web app, tablet and smartphone apps as well as a software for Mac OS and Windows Works online and offline, with live syncing or asynchronous updates Collaborators can have viewing or editing privileges Marks recent editing and authors Through customisation, allows discussion around any piece of text, attribution of tasks, and retrieval and reporting on activities
|
| Reviewing the literature | Through custom templates, facilitates file management, indexing, annotation, linking, tagging, searching with retrieval of citations in context
Insertion of PDF files and their printouts. All PDF content of the library can be searched
|
| Generating data | Captures text, webpages, audio, images, screenshots and video directly to its pages
Handwriting and drawing abilities Multi-platform – PC, Mac, Android, iOS and Windows Phone Insertion of documents, Excel, PDF, audio and video files Advanced web clipping abilities OCR capabilities – extract text from scans and pictures Transcribes voice to text (in Windows smartphones) and vice-versa
|
| Storing, protecting and managing data | Uses cloud storage with synced computer storage for file management and sharing
Password-protect any section Organisation with many levels of depth – notebook, sections group, sections, pages, subpages, sub-subpages Pages can be based on paper sizes or open infinite canvas, allowing linear and non-linear organisation of text, graphing and drawing
|
| Searching | Word search tools with reporting ability
Searching for words in images, audio and video files Searching across notebooks, sections, pages, subpages, sub-subpages
|
| Transcribing | Converts handwritting into text
Audio and video files recorded inside a page sync the notes taken during the recording with the specific time of the audio/video. When the note is “played”, the audio or video is “played” and vice-versa
|
| Memoing | Handwritten, text, audio and video memoing associated with the content at the paragraph level or at the audio and video timetag
|
| Editing and writing | Advanced text editing and basic styles
Outliner abilities Works simultaneously in multiple windows Clean full screen editing for decluttered writing Design of custom templates to organize writing Automatically saves pages versions that can be recovered at any moment Proofing tools and thesaurus Translation tools Advanced handling of tables
|
| Coding | Paragraph based tagging system
Allows for custom coding Search and retrieval abilities with basic operators Generates code search reports
|
| Data linking | Allows hyperlinking of any pieces of text or file within and between any pages of OneNote and to external pages and files
|
| Data displaying | Graphical design characteristics for drawing and making graphics
Organisation and manipulation of any content Live embedding of Excel and Visio pages
|
| Graphic mapping | Graphical design characteristics allowing for graphical mapping
|
| Research project managing | Through custom templates, facilitates planning pages and calendars
Direct Outlook integration with the possibility of setting calendar appointments and reminders |
Check out our Research Training and Digital Research Notebooks Design