How to use DOTEbase

Watch the Introduction to Use Cases video tutorial on YouTube.

There several classic ways that DOTEbase can support working qualitatively with a corpus of audio-visual recordings and/or transcripts.

Getting a grip on an audio-visual corpus of data recordings

Often when confronted with a new set of data recordings, one can be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of recording hours or the number of camera views or microphones. One of the key reasons we developed DOTEbase was to be able to start to make sense of a large corpus of audio and video recordings of an event. To start at the beginning, one can work with the audio-visual media and make notes using Media Clips on anything noticeable as one wades through the corpus, watching hours and hours of recorded data. See our Lego Demo DOTEspace for an example of a DOTEspace that covers a short recorded event but with many video cameras/microphones capturing multiple participants. It is best to use the Media Clipping predefined layout for this task.

Transitioning from the audio-visual data to transcribing

An extension of the previous strategy is to make a first pass through the audio-visual archive, identifying interesting fragments via Media Clips. When enough of a picture of interesting phenomena has been established, then one can open the blank Transcripts created in DOTE and start transcribing the relevant passages indicated by the generated Media Clips. It is best to use the Transcript Clipping predefined layout for this task.

Adding a bunch of already created transcripts to a DOTEspace

Another research methodology is to collect recordings from disparate social events and to find patterns across all instances of something very broad, such as everyday conversation, or more narrow, such as doctor-patient interaction. DOTEbase supports this, too. New audio-visual data and/or transcripts can be added to a DOTEspace at any time.

Working as a team with DOTEbase

Because DOTE Transcripts are local, and Media and Transcript Clips are stored locally, they can be worked on in a distributed fashion. A team could create and edit transcripts on a broad range of cases, then assemble all the DOTE Projects/Transcripts into a common archive and create and share a DOTEspace that includes them all. In fact, a team could work on individual DOTEspaces, or a common DOTEspace that has been shared, and create Media Clips independently. If all those DOTE Projects across the team are then pooled together in a common DOTEspace, then all the Media Clips (and Transcript Clips) would be integrated into one DOTEspace. When any team of researchers are creating Clips (both Transcript and Media) a common frame of reference for tagging may be desirable. DOTEbase will compile all Tags found in a DOTEspace, so the set of all Tags may grow exponentially when there is little structure in common. This is not to argue for constructivst coding as a qualitative research methodology.

Making notes while transcribing (and after)

In DOTE itself, one can just start transcribing from scratch and add Transcript Clips as one notices specific phenomena or incidents. All of these Clips will be available in DOTEbase when a DOTEspace is created later. One can make repeated passes over the emerging transcripts to add more and more Transcript Clips.

Using the Canvas to visualise the corpus and emerging phenomena

Once you have gotten started, and Media and/or Transcript Clips are being created, the Canvas can be used to visualise relationships between Clips in a DOTEspace. One can mind map loose connections between instances or sets of phenomena represented by the clips and their tags/notes. Much like mind-mapping, the Canvas offers a broad range of line types, arrowheads, colours and boxes (as well as icons/emojis) to symbolise elements and relationships. Clips can be dragged around the canvas and clustered/linked/boxed together.

Making comments on students' transcripts in DOTE

A simple use case without DOTEbase is to add comments using Transcript Clips to students' attempts to transcribe using DOTE. Just have the student(s) export their Project and/or Transcript and share the exported file. Import the Project and/or Transcript into DOTE and add as many Transcript Clips with tags and notes as you wish. When finished, export the Transcript and share it with the student, who can import it back into the same Project. Transcript Clips are viewable (read only) even to users of the free Edition of DOTE. One might also make changes and edits to the transcript, but then Checkpoints are a better way of tracking precise changes in DOTE over time.

Making comments on other's data and transcripts in DOTEbase

If both parties have an Edition license, then a use case is to add comments using Media Clips as well as Transcript Clips in DOTEbase. Just have the student(s) export their DOTEspace and share the exported file. Import the DOTEspace into DOTEbase and add as many Media Clips and Transcript Clips with tags and notes as you wish. When finished, export the DOTEspace and share it with the student, who can import it back into DOTEbase as a new DOTEspace.

Keeping track of students' transcripts in DOTEbase

An extension of the previous strategy is to use DOTEbase to keep track of all the Transcript Clip notes made about a cohort of students' transcripts that were marked up in DOTE. A teacher can use DOTEbase to create a DOTEspace that includes all of the students' transcripts. Then they can search for patterns across all the students' work, and use it to present the students' work in class. For example, the teacher can have multiple transcripts open at the same time by different students and/or the teacher for comparison. And the teacher could search Clips for specific note comments they made and view the relevant transcript lines in every search result.

Adding written texts and documents to use in DOTEbase

It is feasible to use DOTE to create Projects with no media and a Transcript that formats a written document. If each document has its own Project OR a set of similar documents are contained in one Project, then DOTEbase will find the documents if they are placed in a watch folder in a DOTEspace. The documents can be annotated using Transcript Clips with Tags, Comment, Style and User-defined Fields. Thus, one can mix Media, Transcripts and Documents in the same DOTEspace and use the powerful tools of Clipping, Tagging, Collections and Search to manage and analyse them together.