Working with Collections

Transana provides several ways to work with Collections, including:

Specifying the order of your Clips

You can specify the order of the Clips in each Collection. This is different from most other items listed in the Database tree, which are presented in alphabetical order. When you add a new Clip by pasting or dropping transcript text on a Collection name, Transana puts the Clip at the end of the list of Clips within the Collection.

To place a new Clip in a specific position on the Clip list
  1. Paste or drop the transcript text into the list of Clips in the position where you want the new Clip to appear. Transana inserts the new Clip above the Clip you paste or drop it on.
  2. Reorder existing Clips by cutting and pasting (or dragging and dropping in Windows) within the Database tree. You can experiment now with rearranging the Clips in your Collection.

Creating nested collections

You can nest Collections within other collections, which allows you to create more complex analytic structures within Transana. Nesting is often used for categorizing and sorting an existing collection as your theoretical understanding of your data develops.

To nest a collection
  1. Right-click a collection name.
  2. Select "Add Nested Collection."

Creating Collection Summary Reports

You can create various printer-friendly reports when you work with Collections. The Collection Summary Report creates a printer-ready report about all Clips in a collection including Clip ID, media file name, Clip start and stop times and duration, and the Clip transcript. This information can be very useful in studying your Clips and in editing video after using Transana during case development.

To generate a Collection Summary Report
  1. Right-click the name of a Collection in the Database tree.
  2. Choose "Collection Summary Report" from the pop-up menu.
collectionsummaryreport

Creating Keyword Usage Reports

Keyword Usage Reports produce a list of keywords for all Clips in a Collection, including a summary that indicates the number of times each Keyword appears within the Collection. Keyword Usage Reports are also available for Episodes (listing Keywords for all Clips created from the selected Episode) and for Series (listing Keywords for all Episodes in the selected Series).

To generate a Keyword Usage Report
  1. Right-click the name of a Collection (or an Episode or a Series) in the Database tree.
  2. Select "Keyword Usage Report" from the pop-up menu.
keywordusagereport

Playing all Clips

You can play all the Clips in a Collection in order. This is useful when you want to review all of the Clips in a Collection to make sure they belong together and have been categorized appropriately. If you are using Transana for case development, you can create a prototype case by:

Playing all the Clips in order will show you roughly what your final case will look like when you are done with the video-editing process. To play all Clips in a Collection in order

  1. Right-click the name of the Collection in the Database tree.
  2. Select "Play All Clips" from the pop-up menu.

Creating a Keyword Map

The Keyword Map, available for all Episodes, provides a graphical representation of how Keywords have been applied to Clips made from that episode. Each color represents a different Clip, so multiple bands of the same color at the same point in the Episode's time line indicate a single Clip with multiple keywords. Note that the presence of the same keyword at the same location in different Clips is not represented and that the Clip that is processed last in assembling this report will be the only one shown when there is an overlap.

To generate a Keyword Map

  1. Right-click on the name of an Episode in the Database tree.
  2. Select "Keyword Map" from the pop-up menu.
keywordmap