Many projects make use of sources of data that cannot be imported into your project. These sources of data can be represented in NVivo using externals. Externals are simply sources representing data that will remain outside your NVivo project.
Externals could be used to represent:
Web pages which can be accessed using your internet browser
Electronic files stored on your computer or a computer network - such as PowerPoint presentations
Data records which are far too large to include in a project, such as historical records, books or large reports
An external has both its properties (i.e. type, file path, location description) as well as its contents. These contents can be typed into the external and structured using paragraph styles, paragraphs, fonts and color in the same way as documents and memos.
Additionally, when creating an external you can nominate a unit, start and end range to create a named paragraph for each unit. You can then enter your comments or transcription at the relevant points. This external content can be reviewed and separately explored, and like any other source can be edited, annotated, linked, coded and searched.
In the Volunteering Sample Project
Externals are used in the following ways:
The external Volunteers - How to get them, How to keep them represents a book. The units in this external's properties are chapters and the start and end range is the number of chapters relevant to this project. The contents of the external contains a chapter summary for each of these chapters.
The externals Wesley Mission - Definitions of 'Volunteering' and CrossCultural Solutions Website represent web pages. The external content is summary information from these web pages identified as pertinent by the researchers. To open the web pages, on the Project menu click Open External File.
By creating an external to represent and link to an electronic file or web page, you can then add any number of 'See Also' links to this external from within the content of your sources.
Most importantly, if the URL is changed or you move the electronic file that is represented by this external, you need only update the link to this file's external, rather updating each hyperlink to it within your project.
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It is highly recommended that this technique be used for files that are frequently linked to within your project. |
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