Workflow

Whenever you or someone in your team visits the site, the home page is your dashboard. It shows you all recent activity in a project room. If you have multiple projects running at the same time (there is no limit to how many projects you manage with EthnoHub) each one has its own project room. You can set your preferences to adjust what is shown by your personal dashboard.

There are two sidebars: tools and context. The one on the left, with a big + sign, has tools to create project content, or add people. The one on the right shows recent contextual information relevant to the project area you're in, and to the particular aspect of the project you're focusing on.

Data can be any text or images captured during fieldwork. Clues are observations made during fieldwork. Each clue has a context -- the source (a piece of data) and which session it came from.

Clues are freely tagged by the research team. Tags elegantly support coding and sorting. They help you organize the mass of data, and move the project into analytical views. Findings capture patterns that emerge from the collected observations (the clues) or from the tags used in sorting them; often they'll connect to specific pain points or opportunity gaps you notice behind various observations.

The research and analysis model of work is that there's a gradual refinement going from raw data or fieldwork notes, to observations (clues researchers choose to pay attention to), to findings (patterns in clues, or evidence of values or behaviors that could explain the clues).

The strength of the platform is that it supports collaboration among researchers with a mass of data, going from fieldwork to pre-analysis and analysis, even if you're in different locations. Your clients can also be invited to view the data, clues, and findings, and they can interact with researchers via comments on any clue or finding.

Do let us know if you have questions. We aim for our tools to support your team, your project, and your research objectives. Our platform is meant to adapt to and grow with your needs, so please tell us what different ways of entering information, or of coding and manipulating it, would be most helpful to your projects.