DOTEbase: Software Tools for Qualitative Analysis

DOTEbase is a software package that is designed to support the qualitative analysis of large audio-visual data sets and associated transcripts. It was built because there is a need for a software tool to help researchers analyse larger corpora of audio-visual media data, either before they have been transcribed or after. It piggybacks on sets of transcripts created using the transcription software DOTE, which are stored on the same computer or are accessible via an external drive or remote file system. It maintains a local snapshot of all the transcripts that is updated in the background. As much data as possible is stored locally with the transcripts, so if something goes wrong, then the snapshot can be reconstructed again. If a remote drive goes offline, then DOTEbase will use the cached version until it comes online again. It provides a range of tools to annotate, tag, make clips, collect clips and make visual mind maps of the data over time.