What is the Code Distribution view?
The Code Distribution view in ATLAS.ti Web allows you to view quotations coded with one or more codes in your project. Instead of having to page through different documents in your project, you can use this view to flexibly explore your codings across your data.
View your codes by their frequency, so you can easily see how often each code was used along with its associated data segments.
To create a new Code Distribution view:
- Open Views by clicking on the Views button in the left-side toolbar
- Click on "+ New View"
- Select "Code Distribution" from the menu
The resulting view will have two windows: a bar chart of all your codes sorted by their groundedness (i.e., the number of times each code appears in your project) and a list of all quotations in your project.
You can narrow this list to quotations that contain a code or set of codes depending on your preferences. Click on any code in the bar chart, and the quotation list will be narrowed to only those quotations that have the selected code.
You can also select multiple codes, in which case the view will show quotations that have at least one of the codes that you specify.
Deselect any of the codes you previously selected to remove them from your search criteria. Deselecting all of the selected codes will produce a list of all quotations.
You can refine your results further through the search box and through the filter options. The visualization and results will change to show only those data segments which contain the search terms that you enter in the search box.
In the example above, the search term "recycling" was used to refine the view to only those quotations that included the word "recycling." In this case, the number of quotations that contained the code "Sustainability: Lifestyle" was reduced from 148 to 14 (i.e., from including all quotations with the code to only those quotations with the code and the word "recycling." The groundedness numbers for all other codes are also adjusted accordingly, and the list results are filtered to reflect the desired search term.
You can also use the filter dialog to narrow your results set to a criterion or set of criteria based on what codes are applied, what documents they are in, and what document groups or code groups are included, among others.
You can add as many filter rules as you would like. The more specific the criteria, the more relevant the data displayed will be.
You can also add a comment to this view by clicking on the three dots in the top-right corner. The comment space offers a perfect space to note down your research question (or the purpose for which you created this view).
Display options
The bar chart is the default visualization for this view. You can choose among other visualizations by clicking on the "Chart" button in the top-right corner and choosing the chart type from the menu. You can also change the orientation of the visualization and quotation list by switching between "Vertical" and "Horizontal" in the same menu.
You can also rename your view by clicking on the title in the top-left corner and changing it to your desired title.
You can also choose how you want to sort the resulting quotations by clicking on the header row at the top of the column you want to sort. Finally, you can save the report to your computer by clicking on the download icon in the top-right corner. This will generate an Excel spreadsheet of the data quotations, their associated codes and comments, and the document from which each quotation comes.