What is NVivo?

NVivo is a powerful software that organizes, analyzes, and displays information for qualitative and mixed-methods social science research. Qualitative research can be a daunting endeavor, but NVivo is a powerful tool that can organize qualitative information quickly.

Advantages

NVivo users can organize material by subject, create visual representations of collected data, and quickly discover trends and themes.

NVivo can analyze a large body of text (ranging from literature to research articles, and beyond) and identify and mark patterns and common themes.

NVivo can find insights in interviews, articles, web content, social media, and open-ended survey responses.

NVivo offers useful tools for data organization and analysis, including:

• Isolating frequently occurring terms
• Precise data searches
• Code data automatically from text search
• Display a matrix of codes in data
• Create data visuals that show results and relationships
• Capture and analyze data from social media

NVivo supports a large number of text, audio, video, and image file formats, as well as reference management software files like EndNote, Zotero, or RefWorks. Additionally, NVivo users can upload files from note-taking softwares like Evernote and OneNote. 

NVivo has the ability to create “explore diagrams,” an automatically-generated mind map. Learn more here.

Users can upload bibliographic materials to NVivo from platforms like EndNote, Zotero, RefWorks, and Mendeley.

Individuals can use EverNote on their smartphone to take notes, and import those notes directly to NVivo via a computer.

Support for NVivo

EdTech offers trainings on using NVivo, and also runs a community of practice for NVivo. For more information or to schedule a one-on-one consultation, reach out to EdTech through askedtech@bu.edu.

View, print, or download a PDF quick reference guide for Windows or Mac via TechWeb.

NVivo help guides are available online for Windows and Mac.

Users can also learn about NVivo directly from the NVivo website.