Introduction to NVivo

Classifications allow you to store information about key attributes of the cases and files in your project. For example, you might store values for attributes such as age or location. You can then use these attributes to make comparisons and/or filter searches, with examples of both provided on the Searching page of this module. Classifications are not essential, but they can be a helpful addition to your project, and many are created automatically.

To follow the examples on this page, you can either use the project you created in the Setting up a project page or use the Environmental Change Down East sample project (as detailed in the Sample projects page).

Case classifications

Case classifications allow you to store information about the characteristics of cases in your project, such as people or places. You can add case classifications in several ways. These include importing emails or survey data, importing from SPSS, using one of NVivo’s pre-defined classifications, or creating your own classification.

Creating a case classification by importing

Case classifications are automatically created when you import emails or survey data into an NVivo project, or when you import from SPSS.

When you import an email the ‘Person’ case classification is created. Attributes for the sender and recipient(s) are then populated using information available from the email, such as their name and email address. This pre-defined case classification is described in the next section.

When you import survey data into NVivo, the Survey Import Wizard creates a new classification, with attributes created and populated using the closed-ended questions in the survey. The default name for the classification is ‘Survey Respondent’, but you can change this.

You can see how the survey questions correspond with the classification attributes by opening a dataset in the Details View in NVivo (for example, the Survey Responses file in the Surveys folder, or another dataset you have imported). Then select the Case Classifications folder in the Navigation View (in the ‘Cases’ group) and click on the plus sign next to the classification (for example, ‘Survey Respondent’) to view the attributes. These should match the closed-ended questions in the survey file (those in the grey columns), with the exception of the ID column.

You can also import case classifications from SPSS. To do this, right click on the Case Classifications folder in the Navigation View. Alternatively, open the Case Classifications folder in the List View and right click in the white space. Either way, select ‘Import from SPSS…’, then choose an SPSS file and use it to create a new classification or import it into an existing classification.

When you do this, the variables in the SPSS file become the attributes of the new classification, or are added to the attributes of an existing classification. The cases (or rows of data) in the SPSS file become cases in NVivo, while the data in each row become the attribute values for each case.

Using a pre-defined case classification

NVivo has two pre-defined case classifications: one for a person and one for an organisation. The ‘Person’ classification includes Name, Sex, Age Group, Occupation, Country of Birth and Email address attributes, while the ‘Organisation’ classification includes Name, Sector, Size and Industry attributes.

To create a new ‘Person’ classification, for example, follow these steps:

1. Click on the Case Classifications folder in the Navigation View (in the ‘Cases’ group), if it is not already open
2. Right click in the blank area in the List View
3. Select ‘New Classification’
4. Select ‘Add one or more predefined classifications to the project’, then choose ‘Person’
5. Click ‘OK’

You will see that a new ‘Person’ case classification has been created with the attributes listed above. Click on the plus sign next to the classification to view them.

Although the ‘Person’ case classification is pre-defined, you can rename it or edit, delete or add attributes as needed. For example, you could delete the Country of Birth and Email address attributes, change the Sex attribute to Gender, and add a new Township attribute as follows:

1. Click on the Case Classifications folder in the Navigation View (in the ‘Cases’ group), if it is not already open
2. Click on the plus sign next to the ‘Person’ case classification to display the attributes
3. Select both Country of Birth and Email address, right click and choose ‘Delete’
4. Double click on Sex, change the name to Gender and select ‘OK’
5. Right click on ‘Person’, choose ‘New Attribute’, enter the name Township and select ‘OK’

The attributes should now be as follows:

Next, to create a case from an existing file (for example, the Margaret file) and assign it to this case classification, follow these steps:

1. Right click on the file you want to create the case and case classification for in the List View (for example, Margaret in the Interviews folder)
2. Scroll down to ‘Classification’
3. Select ‘Person’ under ‘Create as Case and Assign to Case Classification’, or if you have not already created the ‘Person’ case classification you can do this now by selecting the ‘New Case Classification’ option instead
4. Use the ‘General’ tab to rename the case and provide a description, nickname and colour if desired
5. Use the ‘Attribute Values’ tab to enter values for the attributes (for example, enter the Name ‘Margaret’, the Gender ‘Female’, the Age Group ‘50 - 59’, the Occupation ‘Museum educator’ and the Township ‘Davis’)
6. Select ‘OK’, then open the Case Classifications folder in the List View and double click on the ‘Person’ classification to view the new classification in the Details View

Alternatively, you can create the case first by right clicking on the Margaret file and choosing ‘Create As’ and ‘Create as Cases’. You can assign it to the ‘Person’ classification at the same time, or you can do this later by right clicking on the Margaret case and selecting ‘Classification’ and ‘Person’. You can also create a case from scratch and then assign it to the classification, as described in the next section.

Finally, to remove a case from a particular case classification, click on the name of the classification in the Navigation View (for example, the ‘Person’ case classification in the Case Classifications folder). Then right click on the case you wish to remove in the List View (for example, Margaret) and select ‘Classification’ and ‘No Classification’. You can also delete case classifications at any time. Open the Case Classifications folder in the List View, right click on the appropriate case classification (for example, ‘Person’) and select ‘Delete’. Cases can be deleted in the same way. For example, you could delete the Margaret case from the Cases folder.

Creating your own case classification

Alternatively, you may wish to create your own classification from scratch. To create a ‘Place’ case classification, for example, follow these steps:

1. Open the Case Classifications folder in the List View and right click in the blank area
2. Select ‘New Classification’
3. Enter a name for the new classification (for example, ‘Place’)
4. Select ‘OK’
5. You can then add attributes to the new case classification as described above. Right click on ‘Place’ in the List View of the Case Classifications folder, then select ‘New Attribute’. For example, add Name, Population Size and State attributes, making sure you change the ‘Type’ to ‘Integer’ for Population Size.

You can create a case from an existing file and assign it to this classification using the method described previously, or you can create a case from scratch. To create one from scratch, right click on the Cases folder in the Navigation View (or in the blank area of the Cases folder in the List View) and select ‘New Case’.

Enter a name for the case (for example, Davis) and a nickname and colour, if desired, in the ‘General’ tab. To assign the case to the new ‘Place’ case classification, select the ‘Attribute Values’ tab and choose ‘Place’ as the case classification. Finally, enter values for the attributes in the table that appears below. For example, enter the Name ‘Davis’, the Population Size ‘422’ and the State ‘North Carolina’.

To add data to the Davis case, you can code material to it in the same way that you would code material to a code (as described on the Codes & coding page of this module). This allows you to analyse the data stored in the case using the attributes of the case classification.

File classifications

File classifications are very similar to case classifications, but they are used to store descriptive information about files in your project. You can add file classifications in several ways. These include importing emails or importing from EndNote or SPSS, using one of NVivo’s pre-defined classifications, or creating your own classification.

Creating a file classification by importing

File classifications are automatically created when you import emails into an NVivo project, or when you import from EndNote or SPSS.

When you import an email into NVivo, the pre-defined ‘Email Message’ file classification is created. The attributes are populated using information available from the email, such as the subject, who it is from and to, and the date sent and received.

When you import from EndNote into NVivo, you can assign all references to the ‘Reference’ file classification or assign them to different classifications based on the reference type (‘Journal Article’, ‘Book’, ‘Report’, etc.). These are all pre-defined file classifications in NVivo and will be populated with the relevant reference information.

To see the file classifications that have been created for references, either in the sample project or in the project you have created in this module, click on the File Classifications folder in the Navigation View (in the ‘Data’ group). You should see at least one file classification: either ‘Reference’ (if you are using the sample project, or if you chose to assign all records to a single classification when importing into your own project) or ‘Journal Article’ and ‘Book’ (if you chose to assign records to different classifications based on type).

To see the attributes of any of these or other classifications, click on the plus sign next to the relevant classification. As with case classifications, you can create a new attribute by right clicking on the classification and selecting ‘New Attribute…’. To see the files that have been assigned to a particular file classification, double click on the classification so that the classification sheet opens in the Details View.

Importing file classifications from SPSS is done in the same way as for case classifications (as described in the Case classifications section), but using the File Classifications folder rather than the Case Classifications folder. When you do this, the variables in the SPSS file become the attributes of the new classification, or are added to the attributes of an existing classification. The cases (or rows of data) in the SPSS file become ‘External’ files in NVivo, while the data in each row become the attribute values for each ‘External’ file.

Using a pre-defined file classification

NVivo has many different pre-defined file classifications, ranging from ‘Ancient Text’ and ‘Artwork’ to ‘Web Page’ and ‘YouTube’. To create a new pre-defined file classification, right click on File Classifications in the Navigation View, or in the white space of the File Classifications folder in the List View, and select ‘New Classification’.

Next, select ‘Add one or more predefined classifications to the project’ and choose a classification from the list. For example, try selecting ‘Reference’. You can view the attributes of this new file classification by clicking on the plus sign next to ‘Reference’ in the File Classifications folder in the List View. You can also rename, edit, delete or add attributes in the same way as for a case classification.

Finally, to assign a file in your project to this new classification, right click on the file in the List View and select ‘Classification’ and ‘Reference’.

Creating your own file classification

You can also create your own file classification from scratch. Right click on File Classifications in the Navigation View, or in the white space of the File Classifications folder in the List View, and select ‘New Classification’. Enter a name for the new classification and a description if you wish (for example, use the name ‘Book2’), then select ‘OK’.

You can then add attributes to the new file classification by right clicking on ‘Book2’ in the List View of the File Classifications folder and selecting ‘New Attribute’.