Qualitative data is often rich, complex, multifaceted and vivid. Sometimes the challenge is how to reduce sources of data sufficiently to make sense of events. Sometimes the task is to manage the growing body of data, as you explore complexity in detail, further research events, create records and your understanding of them changes.
Your records will be more useful if you are aware of the tools NVivo offers for managing, describing and coding your sources of data from the start of the project. The sources of data in your project are represented within NVivo as 'Sources'.
The choice of sources to include in your project is very much determined by your research question or topic. In particular, while building up your sources, ask:
How can you increase the richness and accessibility of your sources? (i.e. Should you include additional detail about the interview other than its direct transcript?)
Can you work directly with your audio and video sources or should they be transcribed—if so, does the whole source need to be transcribed or are pertinent quotes enough?
What contexts should be recorded? (i.e. Would your analysis benefit from additional detail about the source itself which you could record in descriptions and memos?)
Have you included any demographic details or characteristics related to your data which may be of interest to your research? (i.e. Do you want to be able to distinguish between data related to different sites or groups of participants?)
What tasks are mechanical and clerical, and can you use NVivo to do these automatically? (i.e. Can you format your sources to take advantage of auto coding?)