Create theme nodes automatically

NVivo provides tools that help you to create theme nodes automatically.

The techniques in this article also apply to other types of codes—for example relationships.

Create nodes from... Description

Importing files

Create theme nodes automatically and code the entire files to the nodes when you import files.

  • An Evernote export file—use tags to create and code at theme nodes.
  • An NCapture file—specify theme nodes to code to when you use NCapture to gather web pages and social media data.

Query results

When you setup a query, you can choose to save the results as a new node. For example, you could

  • Run a Text Search query looking for the terms farming and cultivation and code all occurrences at a new node called agriculture.
  • Run a Coding query to find all content coded at wind power and solar power and gather it into a new node called alternative energy.
  • Run a Compound query to find content coded at carbon emissions that also contains the term Kyoto agreement and code it a new node called regulating carbon emissions.

You can also create nodes from individual words in the results of a Word Frequency query. Manage query results

Mind Map

You can create theme nodes automatically after you have built a mind map. The node hierarchy matches the mind map structure.

Node Matrix

You can create a node hierarchy based on the rows and columns in a node matrix. Node matrices

Auto coding

Depending on the type of files you are working with, you can use auto coding techniques to automatically create nodes for themes. For example, If you have a collection of question/answer interview documents—and the questions and answers are consistently formatted using paragraph styles—you can auto code to create a theme node for each question. Automatic coding in documents

Automated insights

NVivo Plus users can automatically create nodes for themes with Automated Insights. If you are working with large volumes of data, or have limited time, you can quickly identify broad themes and sentiment in your files using the Auto Code Wizard. Automatically detect and code themes

You can also automatically detect and code to sentiment.

Automated insights may work better for some projects than others. Automated insights

(NVivo 12 Plus only)

Another NVivo project

You can import the node structure from another NVivo project. You can choose to import theme nodes with or without the coded content.

Importing a codebook

To create your node structure, you can import a codebook that has been saved in the Codebook Exchange Format (.qdc). This is a standard format for sharing codes between Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) tools.

To import a codebook:

1. On the Import tab, in the Codebook group, click Codebook.

2. Locate and open the .qdc file.

3. To include colors that have been assigned to codes, click the Include colors checkbox.

NOTE  Colors can vary between QDA tools. If you select the Include colors checkbox, NVivo uses the closest color match. This can lead to unexpected results and should be considered carefully if you have used colors to identify particular categories of nodes.