Working with qualitative data

[ramonaf...@gmail.com]

Dear cytoscape community,

I am currently working on a sociology / political science paper based on the groundes theory methodology. This means that I have a large set of codes that I have to combine manually into larger concepts and then relate them to one another. For example, I do have cultural and economic factors which ar enot only related within their own category, but there are also interactions between cultural and economic factors. Thus, I need a tool that is powerful enough to visualize complex networks, but I do not have a data set to upload. Rahter, I will have to create the network manually. As I am not familiar with this software, is anyone able to tell me weather this will be possible with cytoscape or maybe recommend another tool if there is any? Basic mindmapping tools won't work, as I will have to work with multiple centres on one sheet and not just a single main subject as obligatory in mindmapping programs.

Thanks a lot in advance!

[Scooter Morris]

Well, Cytoscape is certainly powerful enough, and provides the necessary tools to create a network manually, but I would probably recommend you start by creating a spreadsheet with your data.  Most people find interacting with a spreadsheet an easier on-ramp.  In your case, you might have something like:

code1 code2 interaction

and then a separate spreadsheet of all of your codes:

code description "concept group", etc.

It's very straightforward to import these into cytoscape for visualization and analysis.

-- scooter