am cat workshop part 1

Introduction I: AmCAT II: Automatic Analysis III: Manual Analysis Wrap-up

Text Analysis using AmCAT

Wouter van Atteveldt - Nel Ruigrok - Carina Jacobi

8 July 2013

Text Analysis using AmCAT Wouter van Atteveldt - Nel Ruigrok - Carina Jacobi


Workshop outline

Workshop Outline

� Three Sessions

� 14:00 - 15:00 I: AmCAT: Introduction� 15:00 - 16:00 II: Automatic Analysis� 16:00 - 17:00 III: Manual Analysis

� Session Format

� Presentation + Hands-on

� Material

� Outline� Work book� AmCAT Manual



AmCAT: Introduction

AmCAT: Introduction

� The role of quantitative content analysis

� What is AmCAT?

� Getting started with AmCAT



AmCAT: Introduction

Quantitative Content Analysis

� Repeatable and valid

� Latent or manifest, `objective' or `subjective'

� Fixed units of measurement

� Fixed values for variables



AmCAT: Introduction

Manual and Auatmtic Analysis

� Content Analysis as measurement

� Coding of symbolic content to numeric values

� Interpretation / Assignment of meaning

� Automatic Analysis: instruction to computer� Manual Analysis: instruction and interpretation



AmCAT: Introduction

Combination of analysis techniques

1 Qualitative analysis (inductive)

2 Automtic quantitative analysis

� Measuring concepts under study� Finding interesting articles

3 Manual quantitative analysis

� Measuring concepts

4 Qualitative analysis (interpretative)



Getting started with AmCAT (ch. 1 and 2.2)

What is AmCAT?

� Framework for text analysis

� Developed at VU University

� Open source, open data, open platform

� Main functions:

� Text storage� Automatic analysis� Manual analysis




Key terminology

� Project

� Article

� Article Set

� Index

� Coding Job, Coding Schema, Code Book

� Navigator, Annotator, API




Who can use it? What does it cost?

� AmCAT source code is free and open source

� VU University hosts amcat.vu.nl� Free to use for small projects

� (no support)

� Contribution requested for larger projects� (or just setup your own server)

� Development is open but centrally controlled




Getting started with AmCAT

� Creating an account

� Creating a project

� Uploading data




Hands-on session 1

� Create an account and project

� Upload data

� Until 15:00



Finding Conceptsx in Texts using Keywords (ch. 4.1)

Automatic Analysis

� Keywords as concept indicators

� Making good keyword queries

� Analysing and exporting results




Concepts, words, and indicators

� A Dictionary is a list of:

� Theoretical Concepts

� Operationalized using keywords

� Which are indicators for the concept




Example searches

(interactive demo)




AmCAT Query Syntax(See manual �4.2 and `search syntax help' in AmCAT)

� Connectors

� war OR conflict

� gaza AND war

� gaza AND (war OR conflict)

� (war OR conflict) NOT drugs

� Wildcards

� war*

� Phrases

� "war on drugs"

� "war drugs"~5

� "palest* (terror* OR suicide)"~10




Precision and recall

� Query too broad:

� Articles are found that don't contain the concept� Low precision

� Narrow query using phrases, AND/NOT conditions

� Query too narrow

� Articles are missed that do contain the concept� Low recall

� Widen query using wildcards, OR synonyms




Testing the e�ect of widening/narrowing a search

� Search for narrow and for wide NOT narrow

� After widening a search:

� e.g. war → war*

� Search for war* NOT war, and check resultingdocuments

� After narrowing a search

� e.g. suicide → "suicide (bomb* OR attack*)"~10

� Search forsuicide NOT ("suicide (bomb* OR attack*)"~10)



Analysing and Exporting Results (ch. 4.3)

Analysing and exporting data in AmCAT

� Trends and patterns: Tabulating data

� You can export raw data, hits, and aggregate results

(interactive demo)



Analysing and Exporting Results (ch. 4.3)

Hands-on session 2

� Create search terms for actors and issues

� Export results

� Until 16:00



Quantitative Content Analysis (ch. 5-7)

Quantitative manual content analysis

� Measure speci�c, known concepts in speci�c textual units

� Fixed Unit of measurement

� Sentence or Article

� Fixed sample of articles

� Fixed variables and values




AmCAT jargon

� Codebook: list of values for a single variable

� Coding schema: list of variables and their values

� Coding Job: Article set assigned to someone for codingusing a speci�c schema




Codebooks

� List of values (codes) for a single variable

� Possible hierarchical organization

� Comparable to SPSS value labels

� Issues� Economy

� Unemployment� Economic growth� . . .

� . . .




Coding schemas

� List of variables and their type

� Field types in AmCAT:

� Text� Number� Yes/No� Quality (-1 . . . +1)� Codebook

� Comparable to SPSS variables view



Manual analysis in AmCAT (ch. 10)

Manual content analysis in AmCAT

(interactive demo)

� Creating a codebook and coding schema

� Selecting and assigning a sample to code

� Coding

� Exporting results



Manual analysis in AmCAT (ch. 10)

Hands-on session 3

� Create code book, coding schema, coding job

� Code articles and export results

� Until 16:55



Wrap-up: conclusions and road ahead?

What can AmCAT do for me? / What can I do for AmCAT?

� Use AmCAT for your coding or storage needs

� Install your own AmCAT server

� Improve AmCAT by reporting bugs, providing plugins,adding features

� Write and share (R) scripts/libraries for text-basedanalyses



Wrap-up: conclusions and road ahead?

Programma for Thursday

� Proposal: Advanced automatic analysis:

� Tools for improving queries: cluster maps, keyword incontext

� Vocabulary analysis and LDA using the R API� Semantic Network Analysis: keyword association,grammatical analysis


am cat workshop part 1

Technology