Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
With this type of data, the researcher will usually want to convert the raw text
file into a structured file such as a spreadsheet or an SAS or SPSS data file using
the rules of the codebook. Data analysis applications like
SAS
and
SPSS
and the
main spreadsheet applications like
MS Excel
and
OpenOffice Calc
have wiz-
ards to help import data (see also Chapter 9). Sometimes people will, by habit,
use a word processing application to edit unstructured text files, but it is usually
a bad idea to convert these unstructured files into a word processing application
format like MS Word DOC format because the format adds information to the
file which may prevent it from being interpreted properly by applications. On
Windows, for example, text file should be edited if necessary with the Notepad
accessory rather than Word. The Mac and Linux systems have default text edi-
tors. If the file is only for viewing by a user and not an application, however, then
there is no problem in converting it to a word processing format.
Spreadsheet files
Much data are inherently organized as rows and columns. In a survey summary,
for example, each row of data will correspond to an individual respondent, and
each column will correspond to the responses to a given question. Spreadsheets
are a very common and convenient way to store data that is column or field ori-
ented. This is because the spreadsheet application implicitly understands the
columns, and has facilities for easily selecting and manipulating values by col-
umn or by row. With a spreadsheet application it is easy to enter the informa-
tion into the proper cell, so spreadsheet applications are often the first choice
for researchers entering their own data at the keyboard. It should be noted that
the field formatting information is specific to each spreadsheet application so
spreadsheet files are not necessarily readable by applications other than the one
that created them. However,
OpenOffice Calc
and many of the others are able
to read MS Excel spreadsheets (XLS format) at least up to the 2003 format.
Spreadsheet applications usually include some analytical functionality as
well. In some cases that is quite sufficient for analyzing the data. In other cases
the data will be read into a more sophistical application. As a rule, though, data
should be cleaned prior to placing them in an analytical application. Statistical
and qualitative software applications are designed for analysis, not editing. As
such, general editing is easier to complete in a spreadsheet with Excel or Calc.
MS Excel is easy to work with for editing and is also fairly compatible with
other applications for importing and exporting data.
Database files
Dynamic web sites like blogs, or web sites which take user input like online sur-
veys, often use database software, such as
MySQL
,
MS SQLServer
or
MS
