Sample projects

Five sample projects allow you to explore the full range of NVivo's capabilities. These are fully functional projects that you can edit, add data to, code, run queries on, and produce reports and visualizations for.

Two sample projects are installed with NVivo:

  • Multi-method: community perspectives on development and environment in a coastal area, using interviews, surveys, social media etc.
  • Automated insights: a public consultation on local body budget priorities entirely using autocoding.

Open these projects from the Welcome screen. After you open them, they are saved with any changes you made. Use Recent Projects or Open Other Project on the Welcome screen to re-open these copies. If you click the sample project tiles again it creates new copies, identified by a number in the project names. This allows you to start a project afresh, free of changes you made in previous copies.

Three sample projects can be downloaded from the links below:

In addition, there is a read-only version of the multi-method sample project available for NVivo Collaboration Server users. See below.

See below for more information about each of the sample projects.

Multi-method: Environmental change in Down East

The file materials in the Environmental Change Down East sample project are drawn from a two year study (2008-2009) undertaken by researchers from the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment at the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort, N.C. This study documented community perceptions of development and land-use change on coastal communities in the Down East area of Carteret County, North Carolina, USA.

Additional files have been added to demonstrate the social media analysis features of NVivo 10.

New cases and relationships have been added to demonstrate the social network analysis features of NVivo 11.

Automated Insights: Local government budget consultation

NVivo users can experiment with autocoding themes and autocoding sentiment using a sample project tailored for the automated insights feature.

Based on a local government budget consultation survey conducted in the United Kingdom, this project contains three large documents relating to the public consultation process:

  • Under pressure - how councils are planning for future cuts is a report that describes a local government situation in the UK
  • Future funding - initial draft is a report that gives context to the survey sample data
  • Budget Consultation Survey is a dataset containing survey results from council residents regarding its annual budget. Residents were asked about budget cuts, if they agreed with the council's budget priorities, and if they thought the council should increase tax to help address the funding gap. The survey included two open-ending questions: residents were asked to offer further comments on the budget options, and to offer any other suggestions on how the council could save money.

Literature review: Virtual Reality and Health

This sample project is a partial literature review using creative commons licensed articles on the topic of virtual reality in health care. It focuses on how the tools available in NVivo can be used during the literature review process.

Mixed methods: Wellbeing in the Older Women's Network

This study focuses on wellness centers run by the Older Women's Network of NSW. The data available in this project are drawn from a wide range of source types, including a group discussion, interviews, literature and website materials, responses from two evaluation surveys, video, and cultural domain data.

Survey: Top High School Alumnae

This sample project shows how a simple survey with open and closed-ended questions can be analyzed in NVivo. It is based on a real survey conducted on high school alumnae, and shows both the original survey, notes taken during the data collection and analysis phases, and the final report.

NVivo Collaboration Server sample project

If you have access to NVivo Collaboration Server, you may notice that NVivo Collaboration Server has its own version of the sample project. The sample project will appear in the list of projects available on NVivo Collaboration Server.

You cannot make any changes to the server version of the sample project—it is read only. You can open the sample project and explore the files, codes and other project items. You can run queries, generate visualizations such as charts and maps, but you cannot make changes—for example, you cannot edit or code files or save a query and report criteria.

If you want to experiment with the project—for example, create and save new queries or add your own coding, then you must create your own copy of the sample project. Project save and backup

What can I do in the sample projects?

You can use the sample project to explore and experiment—see how a real project can be structured and experiment with NVivo's powerful analysis tools. You can explore:

  • Files—there is a dataset of survey responses and a dataset containing Twitter data. There are also documents and PDFs (containing interview transcripts, news articles and web pages), audio and video recordings, and pictures of the Down East area.
  • Memos—the memos were used to communicate within the research team, and document the progress of the project.
  • Code structures—there are codes for themes, and cases for people and places. There are also codes for interview/survey questions and Twitter hashtags that were created by autocoding. Try adding your own codes and then experiment with coding the content of documents, datasets, videos and other types of files.

Experiment with queries and visualizations—for example, you can:

  • Run the queries that are set up in the project—the project has saved queries of all types. You can also create your own queries and experiment with query criteria.
  • Generate a cluster analysis diagram to group files or codes that share similar words, attribute values or coding.
  • Generate a hierarchy chart to see patterns of distribution—for example, you can use a tree map to compare the distribution of coding across thematic codes.
  • Create a chart to compare coding or attribute values
  • Select a file and create an explore diagram to see how it is connected to other project items
  • Visualize social networks by generating an egocentric sociogram, a network sociogram or analyze a Twitter dataset as a Twitter sociogram. (This feature is only available in NVivo installations with coding enhancements enabled.)

You can also use the sample project to see how:

  • Folders can be used to organize files, code structures, queries and maps
  • File classifications can be used to store information (including bibliographical data) about the files in the project
  • Case classifications can be used to store information about people and places in the project
  • Reports provide summary information about your project
  • Automated insights can automatically detect themes and sentiment in a set of files. (This feature is only available in NVivo installations with coding enhancements enabled.)