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Researchware, Inc.

Simply Powerful Tools for Qualitative Research

Technical Notes

Our Technical Notes provide guidance and tips for advanced users who want to get the most out of our products.

 

Creating a "Self-Contained" Installation

This Technical Note is on how to create a "self-contained" installation of HyperRESEARCH.

 

Some researchers work in organizations that, for purposes of computer maintainability and/or security, apply restrictions on the researcher's access to the computer they use. This can take many forms. The most basic is that the researcher does not have Administrative access or privileges to their computer they use. Further controls can include making certain folders on the computer READ-ONLY so the researcher can access applications or documents in such folders but can never alter or overwrite them. Another model, more common in the Microsoft Windows world than for macOS, is that the researcher's "home" account or directory or folder is hosted remotely on a server. This affords the organization a number of benefits, such as ease of backing up the researcher's work, but does require that the computer be connected to the server, typically either on a local network or remotely by a VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection.

 

This impacts HyperRESEARCH in several ways:

  1. Administrative privileges are required to install HyperRESEARCH in it's default locations (/Applications/ on macOS and C:\Program Files (x86)\ on Windows.
  2. HyperRESEARCH attempts to follow Operating System manufacturers' (Microsoft and Apple) guidelines on where it should store files it creates for things like the user's preferences, study backups, temporary files, its license file and more. In many cases, these locations are some of the very folders that organizations restrict access to, or are located remotely and require an active network connection to the organization for HyperRESEARCH to access.

It is possible to create an installation of HyperRESEARCH that is "self-contained," i.e. HyperRESEARCH looks for its preferences, license, backups, and other files within its own installation folder. By creating HyperRESEARCH as a "self-contained" installation, this can eliminate error with remotely hosted home directories where there may be intermittent connection issues or the researcher simply needs to work disconnected (remote field research, for example).

 

The one absolute requirement is that the researcher must have full access (read, write, and execute) to this installation folder.

 

The following are the steps to create a self-contained installation of HyperRESEARCH. Again, the installation folder can be anywhere on the local computer's disk drive, but the researcher must have full access to this installation folder.

 

For the purposes of these instructions, we'll assume that a folder outside of the default application folder (i.e. C:\Program Folder (x86)\ on Windows) will be set up such that the researcher has full access. This presumes that the researcher does not have Administrative privileges and hence can not modify or write to the default applications folder. For these instructions, we'll assume a installation of, for example, C:\HyperRESEARCH 4.5.1\ that the user has read, write, and execute access to. These steps use examples for Microsoft Windows, but are equally applicable for Apple macOS by just changing the names of the installer and sample folders to the corresponding names for HyperRESEARCH under macOS.

  1. Uninstall any current copy of HyperRESEARCH
  2. Run the HyperRESEARCH451_Installer.exe, and, if Windows ask if it is okay to run it, tell Windows it is okay to run.
  3. On the installer Welcome Screen, click "Next"
  4. On the License Screen, agree to the terms (Click the check box to accept the terms) and click "Next"
  5. On the "Install HyperRESEARCH to:" screen, leave it as "Your Computer's Hard Drive" and click "Next"
  6. On the Installer Path screen, click the "Change..." button and navigate to the LOCAL folder with read/write access where you want to install HyperRESEARCH.

Using C:\HyperRESEARCH 4.5.1\ for this example, the Application (HyperRESEARCH.exe) and its peer folders will be installed in the folder you select, so we would end up with:

C:\HyperRESEARCH 4.5.1\HyperRESEARCH.exe
C:\HyperRESEARCH 4.5.1\Components\
C:\HyperRESEARCH 4.5.1\Documentation\
etc.

 

After selecting the folder, Click "Next"

  1. On the Installation screen, click "Install"
  2. On the Finish screen, Uncheck "Launch HyperRESEARCH" and click "Finish"
  3. Download the file called "USBenabler.rev" by clicking here (the direct link is: http://www.researchware.com/hr/downloads/USBenabler.zip). This downloads a file called USBenabler.zip, a ZIP archive with the USBenabler.rev file inside. Unzip the USBenabler.zip archive and copy USBenabler.rev file to the Components folder where HyperRESEARCH was installed, so, in my example: C:\HyperRESEARCH 4.5.1\Components\USBenabler.rev
  4. Now launch HyperRESEARCH 4.5.1, from the Desktop Shortcut. When prompted for registration and license key, enter the license information. Click "Proceed" to associating the Study files with HyperRESEARCH. And on the Welcome screen, Quit HyperRESEARCH.

In C:\HyperRESEARCH 4.5.1\Components\ you should now see the files "pref.ini" and "HRruntime.dat, which are the preferences and license file respectively. Every time HyperRESEARCH starts, it will read and write to these two files in the C:\HyperRESEARCH 4.5.1\Components\

 

These two important files (and others) will be created in, read from, and written to the Components folder in the HyperRESEARCH Installation folder. HyperRESEARCH is thus self-contained. As with any HyperRESEARCH installation, the researcher can save their the Source documents and Study files for their research where they like. We recommend creating a folder, in the researcher's Documents folder (macOS or Windows) for each research project and storing your research files there.

 

If you have any questions about this technical note, please contact Researchware Technical Support.

 

Installing HyperRESEARCH under WINE on Linux

The following is a guide to installing HyperRESEARCH 4.0.0 under WINE on Linux. While Researchware is unable to provide technical support expertise on Linux, we support HyperRESEARCH on any platform a customer has it running on. Researchware would like to extend a special 'thank you' to Mr. Ray Ambrosi for figuring out how to install HyperRESEARCH under WINE on Linux and, especially, for authoring this guide and granting us permission to publish it on our web site. Thank you Ray!

 

Install HyperRESEARCH in WINE

  1. Install WINE.

    Be sure WINE is installed on your system. Go to your package manager and confirm it has been installed. I am running Kubuntu 17.10 and installed WINE as well as the QT GUI for WINE. I installed the latest version of WINE by adding the PPA according to instructions here: http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2017/11/wine-2-21-released-how-to-install-it-via-ppa/

     

  2. Install HyperRESEARCH 4.0.

    After WINE has been installed, navigate to the folder that contains HyperRESEARCH 4.0.
    Right click on the executable file and select Q4Wine.

    openwithq4wine

    Q4Wine will run WINE and begin the installation. You should see the HyperRESEARCH installer appear. Follow the installation instructions. My installation took only a few seconds. Once the installer has issued a notification that it has completed, you can try out HyperRESEARCH.

    hrinstaller

     

  3. Start HyperRESEARCH to test it.

    On your Linux OS start button, look for the menu entry entitled WINE. Follow the submenus until you can double-click on HyperRESEARCH. It should start immediately.

    starthrunderwine

     

  4. Install Apple Quicktime.

    If you want to use HyperRESEARCH to play, code, and analyze videos, you’ll need to install Apple Quicktime. Download it here https://support.apple.com/kb/DL837?locale=en_US
    Navigate to the folder that contains Quicktime (usually in your “downloads” folder).
    Right click on the executable file and select Q4Wine.

    qtviaq4wine

    Q4Wine will run WINE and begin the installation of Quicktime installer. Follow the installation instructions. Once the installer has issued a notification that it has completed, start HyperRESEARCH and try using the video playback and coding functions.

     

  5. HyperRESEARCH should now work nearly flawlessly in WINE

    NOTE: HyperRESEARCH will crash if you switch to another application that is also running in WINE and then click on the menu bar to try to return to HyperRESEARCH.
    Workaround: When returning to HyperRESEARCH, avoid clicking on the menu bar. Instead, try to un-minimize or show any of the main windows (Study, Code Book, etc.) and click on the title bar of the window you want to work with, or any window, to make it active, before clicking on the menu bar. This should avoid the crash.

Editor's note: We anticipate the menu bar error will be resolved in the forthcoming 4.0.1 maintenance release.

Coding Conversational Studies in HyperRESEARCH

A frequent form of qualitative analysis is the analysis of question and answer style conversations. This guide illustrates an approach to coding and analyzing such interviews within HyperRESEARCH. Below is a simplified example of a basic conversational interview.

Coding_Conversations_Figure_1

This example displays a code for each question, such as "Question 01 - Did you have pets as a child?" and "Question 02 - Do you currently have pets?".

IMPORTANT TIP: HyperRESEARCH sorts codes alphabetically. By adding a leading zero, as you see in the above example, I ensure that my questions will appear listed in order (assuming I have fewer than 99, otherwise I would need 2 leading zeros)]. I have used my questions codes to code the entire chunk of text containing the question and the subject's answer.

It is important that I cover the answer with one code representing the question, and other codes representing portions of the subject's answer that are relevant to my study (in this case the codes "Dogs" and "Cats").

I will then use a filter feature in HyperRESEARCH called "Overlaps" to filter, for example, just those responses where a subject spoke about "Dogs" in response to Question 01. To use the Overlaps functions effectively, I will code the subject's entire answer to the question with a code representing the question and then portions of their answer with other codes related to my study.

I can now select Filter Codes > By Criteria from the Study Window.

Under the "Build Criteria" menu, I can select "Function..." and then the "Overlaps" function. This will prompt me to pick to code name that I want to test as being overlapping. I then select my Question 01 code, followed by the code "Dogs" (shown below) to find all those response where the person talked about "Dogs" only in response to Question 01.

Coding_Conversations_Figure_2

Clicking "Select" then filters my code response to just those where a subject spoke about "Dogs" in response to Question 01. This is reflected on both the code shown in the Study Window and in the Code in Context sidebar of the Source (see below).

Coding_Conversations_Figure_3

Using the Report Builder or Frequency Report I can:

  • show all my codes by resetting the Code filter to All.
  • use the Overlaps function in Case filters to limits my cases to just respondents who spoke about Dogs in Question 01, and
  • create more complex criteria as well.

Please see the HyperRESEARCH user guide or online help for more information on Case and Code filters and filter functions.

 

Using Notes from Evernote in HyperRESEARCH

Researchers often use the Evernote application to take notes, make observations, and record other information that can be used as source data in a qualitative study. You can easily export selected notes from Evernote as documents that can be used in HyperRESEARCH.

  1. In Evernote, select the notes you want to bring into HyperRESEARCH:
    Selecting notes in Evernote
  2. Choose File > Export. (On Mac OS X, choose File > Export Notes.)
    Choose an HTML export format
  3. Choose either “Export as a single HTML Web Page” or “Export as multiple Web Pages”.
    • Exporting as a single page puts all your selected notes into a single file. If the notes are closely related, and you want to analyze them as one file, choose this option.
    • Exporting as multiple pages puts each note into its own file. If you prefer to analyze each note as a separate source, choose this option.
  4. In HyperRESEARCH, you can code a single source file in more than one case, so even if you export as a single file, you can use the notes in the file in several different cases.
  5. Click “Export” (on Windows) or “Save” (on Mac OS X) to export the file or files.
    evernote-export-confirm
  6. You can open the exported files in HyperRESEARCH by choosing Sources > Open Text Source. However, the exported HTML file has some extra style information that isn’t used by HyperRESEARCH and that may not display properly.

    You can obtain a better result by opening the exported HTML file in Microsoft Word, then choosing File > Save As saving it as a Word file (.docx). You can then open this file in HyperRESEARCH and code it as you would any other source file.

Installation Options for Site Administrators

NOTE: This technical note has been updated to reflect HyperRESEARCH version 4.5.0 Installers

 

The following will serve as a guide for site administrators who need to install and manage HyperRESEARCH and/or HyperTRANSCRIBE across large numbers of desktop systems or on centralized applications servers.

 

Disk Images or Desktop Builds

Terminal or Application Servers

Desktop Management Systems

License Management Systems

Command Line Installations

 

If the install consists of more than simply manually installing a software package on someone's individual computer, this information may be of help to you. The wide variety of ways in which organization may choose to manage their desktop software is highly variable, and we have addressed concerns for a variety of these mechanisms.

 

Disk Images or Desktop Builds

Some organizations ensure that any computers (laptops, desktops, etc.) purchased by the organization for individuals at the organization have a standard set of software pre-installed, often referred to as a standard (disk) image or standard build. Organizations may have a number of different "standard" builds for different groups within their organization. These images can be assembled and replicated on to a new computer through a variety of mechanisms, but often software tools are used that help create, manage, and copy these builds on to new (or old) computers. Ghost (now Norton Ghost) has long been a popular tool for imaging individual computers (see http://www.symantec.com/themes/theme.jsp?themeid=ghost). There are many other such tools.

 

Both HyperRESEARCH and HyperTRANSCRIBE are standard desktop applications.

 

  • To incorporate these into an image, they need to be installed, via their installers on the computer from which a master image will be taken.
  • After installation, they need to be licensed.
  • Launch HyperRESEARCH and HyperTRANSCRIBE (as applicable) and enter a "name" (any thing you like) and optional "organization" into the registration box.
  • Then enter a valid license key.

 

Note: Depending upon how you have licensed HyperRESEARCH, your organization may have been provided an individual license key for each license you purchased or a single key for your site. Our application technically just needs a valid key, so if you have multiple license keys, pick one and use it as the key to activate the applicable software (HyperRESEARCH or HyperTRANSCRIBE as they use different keys). Your organization is legally obligated to ensure you have purchase enough individual licenses for your users, but our software doesn't police that. We believe most people are ethical and will honor the terms of the license without the unneccessary overhead of license enforcement code in our applications.

 

Terminal or Application Servers
Terminal or Application servers enable an organization or install a desktop software package on a central server and enable one or more users to connect to that server and run the software off from the server. Such software can either provide a remote connection to a full desktop and all applications installed for that user or can present a single application as if it was running on the users own computer. Such software may also provide license management, allowing an administrator to set how many instances of a specific software application can be open concurrently. Examples of such Application Server software includes Microsoft Terminal Server (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/virtual-desktop-infrastructure/default.aspx) and Citrix (http://www.citrix.com/).

 

For tools like these, install HyperRESEARCH and/or HyperTRANSCRIBE as you would any other desktop application under these Application Servers. Be sure to initially license our applications by opening them and entering a registration name (any name), organization, and valid license key. If you prefer to install and license the software at the same time and are comfortable with command line interfaces, see details on our command line installer options below. Remember that as with Disk Images above, you can use a single license key to register our software and then use, if available, the mechanism such tools have to limit use to your number of licenses. Such application server tools will generally have a property that can be set for each application that is the maximum concurrent users. This should be set to no more than the number of licenses your organization has purchased.

 

Desktop Management Systems
Examples of Desktop Management Systems include LANDesk (http://www.landesk.com/) or Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/system-center-2012-r2-configuration-manager/default.aspx). Such systems allow an administrator to remotely deploy software to multiple individual computers and to remotely manage and/or control those individual computers. In these systems, you are deploying software to multiple computers rather than installing on a central application server (above). In general an administrator packages up the installer with some related information or commands and selects a set of computers to deploy the package to.

 

For these systems, administrators often use a command line installation process. See the details on our command line installer options for HyperRESEARCH and HyperTRANSCRIBE. Remember that as with Disk Images above, you can use a single license key to register our software and then use, if available, the mechanism such tools have to limit use to your number of licenses.


License Management Systems
License management systems focus on managing concurrent uses of an application regardless of where it is located or how it was deployed. Many of the software systems mentioned above (Citrix, LANDesk, Ghost Solutions Suite, etc.) include or have optional license management. An additional example of a popular license management system is KeyServer (http://www.sassafras.com/). For license management systems like KeyServer, after you have deployed a licensed version of our software (as part of standard build for example), you can identify our applications to KeyServer and indicate how many concurrent uses to allow.

 

Some license management systems require that the software to be controlled be modified to incorporate their specific management interface, for example, FlexNet/flexlm (http://www.flexerasoftware.com). We do not support such license management systems.

 

Every organization has different approaches and uses different tools in different ways to manage their computers and software. We cannot possibly cover all the wide range of software management tools or the specifics of how to use them. If your site is running any of these tools, then, hopefully, someone there has been trained in their use and/or has access to the vendor's support for such a system. Likewise, we cannot possible test our software on and under every possible management tool. To the best of our testing, our software will work under most major software management tools.

 

Command Line Installations

HyperRESEARCH and HyperTRANSCRIBE support a command-line installation specifically to support the needs of large site customers.

 

You can use Command Prompt on Windows or Terminal on OS X to install. The Installer currently supports these options:

-u or -ui (REQUIRED): tells the Installer not to load its graphic user interface
-D (REQUIRED): full destination path (e.g. "C:\Program Files" or C:\Program Files (x86)" on 64-bit systems)
-l (optional): full path to a file to log output
-k (optional): valid registration key
-o (optional): organization name for registration
-a (optional): flag for creating desktop alias/shortcut

-r (optional; WINDOWS ONLY): flag for updating file associations in the Windows Registry

Please note that options flags are case-sensitive. The -a and -r flags are Booleans; they require no argument following the flag, as the others do. The options can be used in any order, but of course the data for a given option must follow that option.

 

As with any shell commands, arguments passed to the Installer which have spaces in them must be enclosed in quotes.

In this installer version, only hard disk installs are supported, not dual-platform USB installs. For dual-platform USB installs, you must run the installer with the graphic user interface.

 

Option Details:

-u[i] is required; without it the Installer will launch as a graphical user interface (GUI) application and no further processing of command-line options will happen.

-D is required, and must be a full path to the destination folder. The Installer will append that path with the name and version of the application, so, for example, if you pass "C:\Program Files" the app will be installed in "C:\Program Files\HyperRESEARCH 3.0" when installing HyperRESEARCH 3.0. On Windows 64 bit systems, remeber to install to "C:\Program Files (x86)".

-l is for logging. You must specify a path and log file name. This must be a full path; partial paths may cause the file to be created in unexpected locations, as the default directory changes many times during installation.

-k is for a valid HyperRESEARCH v3.x registration key or valid HyperTRANSCRIBE 1.x registration key (as applicable). Using this option will cause the Installer to create a registration file in the application's Components folder, so it can be used by all users on that computer. The key is checked for validity before installation begins, and will write a warning to the log file if the key is invalid. If this option is not used, the installer installs HyperRESEARCH or HyperTRANSCRIBE in it's free trial mode.

-o is the name of the organization, used where both the user name and organization are placed in the reg file when installing manually. This option is only useful when -k is used; if not creating a registration file this option is ignored. The option's parameter is used as both the Name and Organization in the registration information.

-a causes the installer to create an alias (Mac) or shortcut (Windows) on the user's desktop to the application that's been installed. This option has no data; simply include it if you want an alias/shortcut created, or leave it out if not.

-r (WINDOWS ONLY) adds the applicable file associations for HyperRESEARCH (.hs2, .hs4, .rwtl, .hsz, and .hs4z) or HyperTRANSCRIBE (.htd and .ht2), which ever is being installed, to the Windows Registry. If the user does not have administrative access to their own computer, this options should be included. Otherwise the user will be prompted upon launch of the application if they want the indicated file extensions associated with that application.

 

The installer options syntax is the same on both platforms, using the file path delimiters specific to each platform:

 

macOS Example:
NOTE: On OSX, you launch applications in Terminal with the 'Open' command and pass arguments with the '--args' switch.

open "/Users/[user]/Desktop/HyperRESEARCH 4.5.6 Installer.app" --args -ui -l "/Users/[user]/Desktop/installerlog.txt" -D "/Applications" -a

OR

open "/Users/[user]/Desktop/HyperRESEARCH 4.5.6 Installer.app" --args -ui -D "/Applications" -k XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX -o "Acme University" -a

OR

open "/Users/[user]/Desktop/HyperTRANSCRIBE 2.0.1 Installer.app" --args -ui -D "/Applications" -a

 

Windows Example:

"C:\Users\[user]\Desktop\HyperRESEARCH456_Installer.exe" -u -l "C:\Users\[user]\Desktop\installerlog.txt" -D "C:\Program Files (x86)" -a

OR

"C:\Users\[user]\Desktop\HyperRESEARCH456_Installer.exe" -u -l "C:\Users\[user]\Desktop\installerlog.txt" -D "C:\Program Files (x86)" -k XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX -o "Acme University" -a

OR

"C:\Users\[user]\Desktop\HyperTRANSCRIBE201_Installer.exe" -u -D "C:\Program Files (x86)" -a

 

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Do You Know...

... that if you use HyperTRANSCRIBE to create your transcriptions, you can use the document as a source in HyperRESEARCH? The transcription can be coded just like any other text document, and a pane at the top of the window shows the original video or audio file. Click a time code in the transcription to go to that point in the video or audio, and play it while scanning and coding the text.

By using a HyperTRANSCRIBE document, you can get all the benefits of working with a text transcript (precision, easy scanning, searchability) while keeping the benefits of having the original media file (emotional context and subtleties that may not come through in a transcription). Work with all your senses and with multiple modalities, to get new insights and better mastery of the source material.
Learn More About HyperRESEARCH™
Learn More About HyperTRANSCRIBE™