Cassandre is a free open source software for computer assisted

qualitative data analysis Qualitative research is a type of research that aims to gather and analyse non-numerical (descriptive) data in order to gain an understanding of individuals' social reality, including understanding their attitudes, beliefs, and motivation. This ...

and interpretation in

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

and

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...

. Although it refers, like other CAQDAS-software, to Grounded Theory Method, it also allows to conduct

discourse analysis Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is an approach to the analysis of written, vocal, or sign language use, or any significant semiotic event. The objects of discourse Analysis ( discourse, writing, conversation, communicative event ...

or quantitative

content analysis Content analysis is the study of documents and communication artifacts, which might be texts of various formats, pictures, audio or video. Social scientists use content analysis to examine patterns in communication in a replicable and systematic ...

. The software is designed as a

server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...

to support collaborative work. Formerly focused on semi-automatic coding, it now provides

diaries Diaries may refer to: * the plural of diary *''Diaries: 1971-1976'', a 1981 documentary by Ed Pincus *'' Diaries 1969–1979: The Python Years'', a 2006 book by Michael Palin *''OFW Diaries ''OFW Diaries'' is a Philippine television documentary ...

assisting qualitative analysis. In academia, Cassandre is used by social scientists in

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

communication studies Communication studies or communication science is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in differen ...

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

and

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

. Some researchers also use it in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

, namely in

knowledge management Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organisational objectives by making ...

, design, human-computer interaction and topic mapping. Many of the Cassandre users are academics and PhD students. The software tool is also used in public services (police and government departments) and in the industry (namely by

Cockerill Maintenance & Ingénierie John Cockerill, formerly Cockerill Maintenance & Ingénierie (CMI), is a mechanical engineering group headquartered in Seraing, Belgium. It produces machinery for steel plants, industrial heat recovery equipment and boilers, as well as shunting l ...

). In 2010, in the so-called KWALON experiment, representatives of selected CAQDAS-Software were invited to analyze a dataset composed of newspapers articles and videos related to the 2008 financial crisis. The software packages Atlas.ti,

MAXQDA MAXQDA is a software program designed for computer-assisted qualitative and mixed methods data, text and multimedia analysis in academic, scientific, and business institutions. It is being developed and distributed by VERBI Software based in Ber ...

NVivo NVivo is a qualitative data analysis (QDA) computer software package produced by QSR International. NVivo helps qualitative researchers to organize, analyze and find insights in unstructured or qualitative data like interviews, open-ended survey ...

Transana Transana is a software package used to analyze digital video or audio data. Transana used to be a GPL licensed software, but has become proprietary software in recent releases. Features Transana lets the user analyze and manage your data, transcri ...

and Cassandre were taking part in the experiment. Commentators depicted Cassandre as the only software limited to text material and as an integrated approach between algorithms and hand-made coding. The experiment, however, suggested that the outcome of the analysis depended more of the analysis strategy than the software.

Features

Its features include: * Semi-automatic coding (through registers) * Collaborative writing (through shared diaries) * Participative research (through shared memos) * Organizing memos * Diagramming

History

Christophe Lejeune created Cassandre's first version in 2006 after his post-doctoral stay in the

University of Technology of Troyes The University of Technology of Troyes (''Université de Technologie de Troyes''; ''UTT'') is a French university, in the Academy of Reims. The UTT is part of the network of the three universities of technology, found by the University of Techno ...

where he involved in the

Social Semantic Web The concept of the Social Semantic Web subsumes developments in which social interactions on the Web lead to the creation of explicit and semantically rich knowledge representations. The Social Semantic Web can be seen as a Web of collective knowl ...

team and participated the definition of the Hypertopic protocol. This protocol was used by Cassandre to exchange data with other software tool from the Hypertopic suite. As a server, Cassandre was storing texts and provided a semi-automated coding feature. Rather than highlighting excerpts (like in most of QDA software), the user highlights keywords or idioms (markers) that instantly match several excerpts of material. These markers are gathered in into registers, which represent analysis categories.Lejeune, Chr., 2011
From Normal Business to Financial Crisis... and Back Again. An Illustration of the Benefits of Cassandre for Qualitative Analysis
''Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research'', 12, 1. Markers and registers are created, managed and browsed with Porphyry's Portfolio, a Hypertopic

client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuable ...

developed in

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

by Aurélien Bénel. Cassandre also provided meta-data and some lexical analysis (words counts) accessible through the Porphyry sidebar, a Firefox add-on. Cassandre second version surfaced in 2010. Initially designed as

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...

/SQL server (first

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database o ...

then

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL (, ), also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. It was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the In ...

), Cassandre was

refactored In computer programming and software design, code refactoring is the process of restructuring existing computer code—changing the '' factoring''—without changing its external behavior. Refactoring is intended to improve the design, structur ...

as a

CouchDB Apache CouchDB is an open-source document-oriented NoSQL database, implemented in Erlang. CouchDB uses multiple formats and protocols to store, transfer, and process its data. It uses JSON to store data, JavaScript as its query language using M ...

application. Lexical analysis was optimized and included in the per text view. Coding was integrated to the browser thanks to a Firefox add-on, LaSuli, developed by Chao Zhou. Released in 2017, the third version of Cassandre consists in a in-depth refactoring. Resting on a typology of memos inspired by Grounded Theory Method, the application provides collaborative diaries aimed at structuring qualitative analyzes. Rather than coding, analysis is made through writing.

References

External links

*
Online diariesCassandre development page (GitHub)
{{Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software , state=autocollapse Free QDA software Cross-platform free software Science software for macOS Science software for Linux

Features

History

See also

References

External links