Transana:
Facilitating the Qualitative Analysis of Video for Individual Researchers and Research Teams

Friday, April 4, 2008
10 a.m. - Noon
Pyle Center Auditorium, Room 121
Streaming Video

Please Register Online for this free event.

The qualitative analysis of video and audio data presents a number of special challenges to researchers. Transana, a cross-platform, open source tool developed at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, is designed for researchers seeking to analyze video and audio data using a wide variety of qualitative approaches for projects of any size. But researchers involved in large-scale collaborative analyses that may cross institutional boundaries have special needs. Transana's multi-user version, which includes the use of Grid tools, enables complex collaborative analysis over distance.

Speakers

David K. Woods, Ph.D.
David Woods is a Researcher at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER), where he focuses on developing software tools that solves problems researchers face and facilitate the work of researchers. He is currently the lead developer for Transana, an open-source tool for the transcription and qualitative analysis of video and audio data. He also led the development of the STELLAR (Socio-Technical Environment for Learning and Learning-Activity Research) system. He received his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Northwestern University, and has worked as a Psychologist and as a Computer Consultant.

Chris A. Thorn, Ph.D.
Chris Thorn is an Assistant Research Scientist at Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER). He is currently engaged in three different lines of work. He is the Principal Investigator of the Evaluation of the Chicago Community Trust Education Initiative. Chris also leads the Data Systems and Data Structures group at the Value-Added Research Center (VARC). Finally, Chris is the Director of Technical Services at WCER, where he manages the unit that provides research support, day-to-day computer and network services, as well as a team of graphic artists, web developers, programmers, and videographers who provide custom support services. His research training is in Socio-Technical Systems from the University of Bielefeld, Germany. His dissertation and postdoctoral work was on public-private R&D collaboration in the semiconductor sector --in particular, cooperation between unlikely partners.

Any questions may be directed to Hideko Mills or Steve Krogull.