Nfield Code Version 1.1

Autocoding Selections of Open-ended Answers

Instead of reviewing open-ended answers one by one, you can select to automatically code entire selections of open-ended automatically based on the autocode search keys you have specified for the Code Frames.

Autocoding cannot be undone. Save your changes before proceeding.

Autocoding uses only the search keys of the selected working language. As a consequence, you can only autocode for one language at a time.

To autocode a selection of open-ended answers

  1. Make sure the correct working language is set.
  2. Make a selection of open-ended answers to code on either the Question, Respondent or Answer overview screen.
  3. Press Autocode Selection on the overview screen where you made your selection. A warning appears:

    Embedded PNG Image Template (Styled)

    Click Yes to continue.
  4. If no autocoding can be done because there are no Autocode search keys, a warning appears:

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    In this case you need to add search keys before you can autocode your selection. Autocoding is not done for the reported question.
  5. If part of the selection was already coded, a dialog appears:

    Autocode: Already Coded

    Click Yes to replace existing codings, Yes to All to accept this for all questions in the selection, No to skip existing codings and No to All to skip existing codings for all questions in the selection.
  6. Once all the relevant selections are made, autocoding starts:

    Embedded PNG Image Template (Styled)

    Depending on the selected number of open-ended answers, the number of codes in the Code Frames and the number of autocoding search keys, autocoding may take a while - varying anywhere between less than a second up until hours. Clicking Abort interrupts the autocoding process, but it does not undo the codings made so far.

Needless to say, autocoding selections is a process that needs to be thoroughly checked. It is recommended to review the automatically coded open-ended answers afterwards and decide for yourself if the open-ended answers need additional codings.

See Also