Editing tags, bundling tags, partitioning tags

JordiSunshine

I am thinking about using Zotero to do some qualitative data analysis. FOr this to be ideal, the tags would be editable as a batch. In other words, if every tag of "banana" needs to become "banana flambe" is there a way to do that? I suppose I could use the selector to find all "banana." But can I add or change a tag to many items?

How about combining tags? Like, let's say I want all instances of "banana" and "frozen" to have a new tag of "chunky monkey." Is there a way to do that?

Finally, how about partitioning tags? If I am looking at all instances of banana, could I select relevant ones and remove or change their "banana" tag to something else, like "apple"?

My ideas are influenced by using delicious.com. For example, this is their discussion of tags: http://www.delicious.com/help/faq#tags

adamsmith

you can add a tag to multiple items by selecting the items and drag&drop them to the tag in the right hand panel. This should also take care of combining tags if you first search and then mass assign.
Batch editing is planned but not implemented yet - you can search the forum for a whole batch of threads on that.

Generally my sense is that there are better tools than Zotero for QDA. The reason is one of priorities: Zotero focuses mainly on its core functions as a bib manager, other programs will do better for data analysis.

JordiSunshine

There are stand alone packages for QDA. Nvivo is one, and it includes a server application for collaboration for a paltry $5000 license!

The groups, tagging, annotating (now and in future), snapshot, and syncing all make Zotero pretty good for what I need for QDA. I realize it doesn't do (nor am I expecting) higher end QDA. But I ended up here after some fruitless searching for other solutions for collaborative Qual Data storage and sharing, tagging, and annotating.

Where is the invisible hand when i need it, eh Mr. Smith? :<)

ftr

You can better use AskSam for your work