Ok. So now I am on the other side of my project. I turned in my first draft and am anxiously awaiting feedback. I wrote my first review for Dedoose a little out of frustration, but after using Dedoose for the whole 30 days, I must say I recommend it to anyone who is doing qualitative research. I know I fussed about the data loss thing, but after those first few days last year, I have not experienced anything like that again and all my data was there, present and accounted for.
Now that I am in my right mind, and have WoooooSaaaaaed from research....here's my updated review.
EASY TO USE- especially for beginners. If you don't have time to learn a new software, it doesn't take a whole lot of brain power to figure out the interface. Also, there are lots of tutorials to help you. Within minutes, you can get down to business.
WEB-BASED- so technically you have your research with you anywhere there is computer and internet. That could propose a problem if you are somewhere without internet. (I had several international flights with no wifi.) But they have great export features so that you can work with the data offline, too.
FREE TRIAL- You get to try the service out for free for 30 days. Originally I thought the free trial was a ploy to get you knee-deep in research and you would be beholden to them forever because they would have your data. But you can export it out (like I did on day 29). Truthfully, with all of the data analysis tools and charts, it exported out way better than I put it in. It went in as plain docs but I exported it out in docs and charts and graphs and spreadsheets....all for free-can't beat that.
PAY MONTH to MONTH- I also like that you can pay by the month, so it is still $156 a year if you are using it 12 months, but if you don't need it for a couple months while waiting for approvals or committee meetings or a host of other things that prolong research, technically you don't have to pay and all your research will still be there. (Mine is still there 3 months removed).
GREAT FOR A TEAM- If you are working with a team, I really think this is the way to go because you all have access to the data (and who did what-in case there are some...."discrepancies." Then, you know who was responsible.) It's probably cheaper that buying each person software, especially if you have different people working on it short term (and/or they are not all students). Furthermore, they added a new Training section where you can set up "tests" to evaluate how the well people on the team apply codes and what weights they give them. This is invaluable to getting everybody on the same page.
WORKS ON A MAC- The options for qualitative analysis software on a mac are a bit scarce. With it being web-based, you can use it on your mac or pc, it's still there in same format. For imports, it runs best with the new Office software (2007 or newer; docx, xlsx). It only uploads docx, so if you are using an older Microsoft Office for Mac (2003), you may have some problems uploading your data into the software, but you can export it in a variety of formats (xls, xlsx, doc, txt).
PRICEWISE, for non-students, this is a great deal. For students, it could be pricer than some of the other software out there (MAXQDA and Atlas Ti runs about $99 for students). Still I chose Dedoose because I didn't have time to learn those programs and make my deadlines and I plan to go further in my research way pass the student stage and I love that all my data will be there (as long as you are active at least 1 month every 2 years.) And when I am Dr. instead of Student, the price will be a steal.
I recommend Dedoose to anyone who is doing research, especially qualitative. It really helped me when I was neck-deep in data and toe-deep in time. I probably got on their nerves because I was frantic those first few days but tech support was great. Many of the bugs I reported were "user error"...but they were gracious and helped me through it nonetheless. This is my software (service) of choice.
