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%\author{Andrea Zanni}
%\date{2010-04-12}

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%\begin{document}
%\chapter{Research Methodology}
\section{Research Questions and Objectives}
The core hypothesis of the present research is the importance of collaborative projects in scholar communities, also in the Humanities context.
Italian digital humanities community has been contacted to be asked about approach of Humanities scholars towards collaboration, particularly in digital projects.
To explore issues and potentialities of collaboration in digital humanities project, especially regarding Italy, the researcher chose three correlated questions: 
\newline

\textbf{H1}: Can a digital library for the Humanities community within the Italian context be \textit{collaborative}?

\hspace{8pt}\textbf{H2}: Can a digital library for the Humanities community within the Italian context be a \textit{collaboratory}?

\hspace{16pt}\textbf{H3}: Can a digital library for the Humanities community within the Italian context be built upon a \textit{wiki}?
\newline

Research questions are here proposed as a hierarchy, because they are dependent in different ways. 
\textit{Collaborative} is a broader term than \textit{collaboratory}: it is a more general question that though served perfectly 
the aim to investigate potentialities of collaboration in digital humanities projects. 
Then the term \textit{collaboratory} specifically refers to the e-science and cyberinfrastructure area, which was important for indicating the scholar context. 
Furthermore, questions provided in the presented sequence did help interviewees to understand and slowly understand topics prosed. 
In fact, not all interviewees did have a clue of what e-science and cyberinfrastructure is, although they were prepared on the single topics or examples. 

Finally, the researcher proposed a \textit{wiki} system a collaborative digital library to investigate a concept of \textquotedblleft strong collaboration\textquotedblright, 
defined as \textit{collaborative editing}.

Therefore objectives of the study are the following:
\begin{itemize}
\item to analyze perception of Humanities scholars (particularly of Digital Humanities) towards collaboration and digital collaborative projects
%\item to investigate collaboration in Humanities communities of practice
\item to investigate wikis to be a possible framework for a collaboratory digital library
\end{itemize}

\section{Introduction}
Following the \textit{research hierarchy} model introduced by \citeA{lincoln1985}, the research \textbf{paradigm} is \textit{interpretivism}

\hspace{10pt} the research \textbf{methodology} is \textit{qualitative}

\hspace{20pt} the research \textbf{method} is \textit{case study} and \textit{focus group}

\hspace{30pt} the research \textbf{techniques} are \textit{interviews} and \textit{focus group}

\hspace{40pt} the research \textbf{instruments} are \textit{human} and \textit{computer}.

\section{Interpretivism}
Adopting the major view assumed in information science, empirical interpretivism and specifically \textit{constructivism} will be the chosen paradigm for the present research, 
as it deals with \textquotedblleft investigation in natural settings of social phenomena\textquotedblright\cite[p. 11]{pickard2007}. 
This study explored opinions and insights of a community of practice, gaining data to understand 
cultural assets and possible directions of online collaboration between scholars and researchers.

Although it would not be accurate to state that \textquotedblleft critical theory\textquotedblright has been used as a principal paradigm, 
it is correct to argue that this study goes in a parallel direction. 
In fact, \textquotedblleft collaboration\textquotedblright is an crucial topic that has been investigated by the research and it touches the real nature and core of disciplines here involved: 
especially in the humanities, collaboration (regarding authorships, attribution, intellectual property and related matters) is an extremely \textit{sensitive} topic, 
that would need further interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research to be understood and comprehended. 
The present study offers just a glimpse of approach towards collaboration (especially online) in the Humanities. 
Investigating facilitators and barriers for collaboration was a related objective of the research and fundamental for answering research questions.

\citeA[p. 13]{pickard2007} paraphrases a definition by \citeA{greene1990}, saying that \textquotedblleft positivists and positivists can be thought of as social engineers, interpretivists as storytellers and 
critical theorists as catalysts of social change\textquotedblright: 
though the present research does not dare to be a \textit{catalyst of social change},
it sincerely suggests a precise direction for the future of digital libraries and digital scholarship.

\section{Qualitative research}
Therefore, perspective could only be \textit{qualitative}. The research reached a defined community of practice to ask if a collaboratory digital library 
could be useful and helpful.
The main data collection technique would be \textit{interviews}, and using as the main research instrument the \textquotedblleft the researcher himself\textquotedblright \cite[p. xvii]{pickard2007}.
Nonetheless, as great effort was spent in developing a software framework for the study, it shall be stated that the computer itself has been a research instrument too.
A complete description of the system used will be further provided.

As the object of study are people, the interpretivist paradigm takes place. 
Following \citeA{heisenberg1958}, and the succeeding post-positivist approach, researchers and respondents are mutually influenced 
and interact in many ways.

Researcher must consider himself as an \textquotedblleft instrument\textquotedblright \cite{maykut1994},
and can apply his tacit knowledge to cope with the complexity of people and human relations 
in order to \textquotedblleft produce meaning from data and using that meaning to develop theory\textquotedblright \cite[p. 14]{pickard2007}.
  
\citeA[p. 15]{pickard2007} adapts the research design model from \citeA{kumar1999} and 
%\citeA{lincoln1985,lincoln1998} 
Lincoln and Guba (1985; 1998, p. 104) 
which illustrates the whole process \textquotedblleft within the boundaries of trustworthiness: transferability, credibility, 
dependability and confirmability\textquotedblright (p. 14). 
The essential components of a qualitative research design are \textquotedblleft literature review, theoretical framework, fieldwork in a natural setting, 
using a human instrument, purposive sampling, appropriate data collection techniques, inductive analysis, emergent design, iteration of activities, grounded theory, 
negotiated outcomes\textquotedblright (\textit{ib.}).

Interaction with participants is the core of qualitative research: therefore, for establishing trustworthiness and credibility, 
every outcome of the research needs verification with respondents. 
Both data and interpretations must be reviewed by involved persons \cite{erlandson1993}.
%(Erlandson \textit{et al.}, 1993).
Stake (1995, cited in Pickard, 2007) emphasizes the importance of \textquotedblleft member checking\textquotedblright stating that it always led his report to improvement.

Moreover, the present research roots its design in what \citeA{lincoln1985} call \textquotedblleft emergent design\textquotedblright, 
namely that in qualitative research \textquotedblleft the research design must therefore be 'played by ear'; it must unfold, cascade, roll, \textit{emerge}\textquotedblright (p. 203, cited in Pickard, 2007, p. 14). 

Emergent design is specific to social sciences, where is very unlikely to have clear and defined guidelines, procedures and boundaries at the beginning of the study. 
The researcher is in front of the unknown and must unfold it. 
Therefore, the design itself must emerge as the research process goes. 
This is exactly what happened for the present research, where aims and goals of the researcher remained still when techniques and tools changed and were tweaked 
to fit the purposes. 

Indeed, \citeA{warden2007} mention that qualitative analysis is \textit{iterative}. 
In the context of this study, the researcher used such approach in order to verify facts or fill
gaps that has been forgotten or uncovered during the initial investigation. This happened especially with interviews: websites and projects suggested in the process of 
interviews were visited to verify information and gain in-depth understanding of the data.

\subsection{Theoretical and conceptual framework}
As the analysis of the literature progressed, a concept map was started to illustrate the theoretical and conceptual framework of the research.
Keywords were extracted from literature with a procedure that will be further explained.

However, for now it will suffice to say that from literature concepts arose that draw a rich picture illustrated below in fig.1. 
The map was drawn with open source software Cmap\footnote{\url{http://cmap.ihmc.us/}}, and it is the first attempt of the researcher with that software\footnote{It may be helpful to state that this was not the first concept map software used by the author, who had other experiences in drawing maps.
This program is by far the best tool used for this kind of work, and it is highly recommended for similar tasks.}.

The theoretical framework is the overall picture of the domain here presented: 
the different color represent topics belonging to different scopes and with different level of importance for the present studies. 
Links between nodes are labeled and describe the relation between topics. 
The conceptual framework can be considered the set of the red, orange and yellow topics, which for a subnet of the whole theoretical framework graph. 
At the center of the map it will be noticed the two main topics (colored in red) of the present study (\textit{Collaboratory digital library} and \textit{Digital Humanities community}),
while around them the net stand the crucial topics of \textit{e-science}, \textit{collaboratories}, \textit{digital libraries} and \textit{collaboration} (colored in orange).
Further, stand the related important topics of digital \textit{humanities} and \textit{wiki} (still colored in orange): after those, more peripherical, stay yellow colored 
nodes representing the \textit{features} of the main topics (e.g. \textit{services} as a feature of collaboratories, \textit{collaborative editing} as the core of wikis, etc.)   

The map must be read as an incomplete portrait of the research theoretical structure; yet it is an helpful guide to understand and comprehend the scopes and the domain of the study.
%\begin{figure}[h!]
 %\centering
%\includegraphics[bb=14 14 522 706,keepaspectratio=true, scale=0.85]{./Cmap.eps}
 % Cmap.eps: 0x0 pixel, 300dpi, 0.00x0.00 cm, bb=14 14 522 706
%\label{fig.1 Theoretical framework concept map}
%\end{figure}

%\clearpage

%\begin{figure}[h!]
% \centering
% \includegraphics[bb=14 14 524 765,scale=0.85,keepaspectratio=true]{./Cmap2.eps}
 % Cmap2.eps: 0x0 pixel, 300dpi, 0.00x0.00 cm, bb=14 14 524 765
% \label{fig:1}
%\end{figure}

\begin{figure}[h!]
% \centering
 \includegraphics[scale=0.85,keepaspectratio=true]{./Cmap3.pdf}
% % Cmap3.eps: 0x0 pixel, 300dpi, 0.00x0.00 cm, bb=14 14 523 786
 \label{fig:1 Theoretical framework concept map}
\end{figure}

\clearpage

\subsection{Trustworthiness}
There are several methods for establishing trustworthiness in qualitative research.
\citeA{lincoln1985} proposed four concepts to gauge the value of research, being
\begin{enumerate}
 \item truth value 
 \item applicability
 \item consistency
 \item neutrality
\end{enumerate}

Accordingly, \citeA{pickard2007} adapted the model for qualitative research, proposing criteria as 
\begin{enumerate}
 \item credibility 
 \item transferability
 \item dependability
 \item confirmability 
\end{enumerate}

\subsubsection{Credibility}
Credibility in qualitative research is proved by everlong engagement with participants, triangulation of data collection techniques and member checking. 
Due to the specific deign of the research, which needed in-depth investigation of participants thoughts and insights, 
triangulation of techniques has not been possible. Aside from interviews, the researcher did not found an appropriate technique
to triangulate data gathered with interviews. Thus, he concentrated on member checking.  

All transcriptions of the interviews have been submitted to interviewees for checking. 
Member checking revealed helpful for both interviews (that cleared some concepts and insights) and the researcher, who gained a better understanding
of topics and discussion. The researcher discussed and submitted insights and data gathered to his advisor during the whole research process. 
Furthermore, he explained some of the results of the outcomes directly to interviews to have feedbacks. 

\subsubsection{Transferability}
Context of the study is specific: a community of practice in the Italian context focusing his study and attention on ancient texts was asked about 
collaborative digital libraries and collaboration facilitator and issues.
Although some general results of the study could be extended to the whole field of Humanities, transferability of the outcomes of the research could only be guaranteed if important factors of the present context would be controlled.

The most important factors appear to be \textit{cultural environment} and \textit{approach towards collaboration}. 
Humanists generally are considered to be quite individualistic and relatively closed to collaboration: 
this attitude may change between nationalities, cultures, subdisciplines, communities of practice.
Data analysis seems to suggest that there are few differences between the Italian and the English context towards collaboration and authorship in Humanities. 
However, data gathered are not enough to make sure statements: thus, it will be better to leave approach to collaboration as a variable.
 
In fact, the present research was based on the Italian context, which will show to be relatively closed to collaboration and communication between scholars.
Further and interdisciplinary research is needed to enlight collaboration issues and approaches of determined communities, and this was not the scope of the present study.
Anyway, interviews suggested that each community of practice has his specific way of dealing with collaboration. 
Furthermore, collaboration through Internet and general digital tool vary dramatically between subdisciplines and singular individuals. 

Nonetheless, data gathered suggests that, generally, \textquotedblleft \textit{attention to textuality}\textquotedblright and focus on texts is the fundamental core 
of different humanistic disciplines. 
One of interviewees stated, regarding collaboration within different Humanities disciplines (and communities of practice):
\begin{quotation}
Scientific communities change because it the \textit{object of their study} changes, but their \textit{methodologies} are more or less the same, they converge. 
[In our communitiy]different aspects of language do change, of course. 
But from the perspective of \textquotedblleft management of textuality\textquotedblright, it does not change much. 
There are huge differences [between communities], even on issues of techniques, procedures and languages, but it's always \textit{attention to textuality}. 
\end{quotation}

Within the same digital humanities community different disciplines share little in common but focusing their studies on ancient texts with a particular attention to digital tools. 
Tools, approaches and aims can therefore be different, but if the approach remains the same outcomes of the research would be still valid.

Likewise for difference of \textit{language}: Italian is not much different from others Latin languages, 
and the same approach for Italian digital libraries could fit Chinese or English digital libraries as well. 
Therefore, language seems no to be a real barrier for transferability of the outcomes of the present study.

\subsubsection{Dependability}
The researcher has been in constant contact with his advisor for the whole length of the research process. 
The advisor got a report of the work at least every week, and guided the researcher regarding every aspect of the methodology. 
The advisor and the researcher had frequent conversation via e-mail, chat and often telephonic meetings, 
which were recorded and re-listened by the researcher not lose advisor's comments and feedbacks.
The advisor received every transcription of the interviews and followed the study at each stage. 
 
\subsubsection{Confirmability}
Confirmability is crucial to limit the bias of the researcher. 
The raw data gathered by the researcher (as notes, TAGs and the research diary) are all contained in the wiki system,
that acted as both as a case database and a framework during the whole research process.
Transcriptions of interviews are in Italian and they will be available under explicit request to whom may be interested.  

\subsection{Limitations}
Limitations of the present study are physical and conceptual. 
Time and economic resources obviously limited the scope of the research; at the same time, 
the study suffers from some methodological flaws and bias. 

\subsubsection{Time and economic limitations}
The main limitations of the study are concerned with time and resources. 
The researcher had four months to design, execute and complete the research, and several improvements could have been applied with a major amount of time available.
Furthermore, with no economic resources, the researcher could not travel much to meet his interviews (it happened only with Eco), 
and thus interviews where conducted online. This resulted to be much more easy and cheap, but avoided possibility of direct observation and a 
real-life interaction with participants. 

Due to the same scarcity of economic and temporal resources, the researcher could not conduct a parallel but complementary study on the community of Liber Liber, the volunteer
driven digital library of Italian public domain texts, (the Italian analog of the Gutenberg project).
The comparison between a scholar and a volunteer community of practice, both working with digital libraries, was foreseen at the beginning of the study (some of the 
scholar interviewees of the study were also part of the Liber Liber community).
The researcher contacted the Liber Liber community several times, through their mailing list, to organize an online focus group, but the attempts were not successful.
The researcher spent a lot of time to find a good and stable framework for having an online focus group, but the Liber Lliber community revealed to be more 
busy and \textquotedblleft digital divided\textquotedblright than expected. Few members of the community replied to the request, but each of them had problems 
to find a day for the meeting or declared issues in using a computer for a video-conference. 

It is the opinion of the researcher that holding a real focus group in Rome (the city where several members 
of the Liber Liber community live) could have been much more successful. 
Unfortunately, there were absolutely no time and economic resources to organize it. 
 
The limited amount of time did lead the author to slowly abandon the complex framework created on the wiki\footnote{The wiki framework will be explained further.}, 
for the last weeks of the process. 
The wiki framework revealed as very helpful at the beginning, but too time-consuming at the end, when the presentation of results had to be written.

\subsubsection{Methodological flaws} 
As this is the first research of the author, expert reviewer could find some methodological flaws in the research process. 
The author used a full constructivist approach that lead him to construct the research day by day,
gathering data wherever possible and tweaking the process as the theory was emerging. 
This may have caused some flaws in the methodological structure, due to the inexperience of the researcher.
To avoid these flaws, the researcher have been in constant contact with the advisor, who helped him trough the whole process.  
 
\subsubsection{Experiences, qualifications and possible biases}
Qualitative research and analysis is shaped by both the subject’s and researchers’ characteristics such as experiences, qualifications and
even biases \cite{warden2007}(Warden and Wong, 2007). The researcher of this study has been working as a volunteer in the Italian version of Wikisource since 2005. 
Wikisource, a wiki digital library, is a sister-project of the well-know free encyclopedia Wikipedia.
As Wikipedia, Wikisource relies on the volunteer work of a community of active users, who upload, format and proofread public domain texts.
Therefore, the researcher developed a personal (and perhaps biased) view about collaboration of communities of practice, grounding his experience in a volunteer environment.
Moreover, in the last 5 years he has been exposed to many discussions, readings, conferences, workshops and lectures about collaboration, digital libraries and wikis.

Thus, the choice of collaboration, collaborative digital libraries and communities as core topics of the research is significant and not neutral for the researcher, 
who is deeply convinced of the goodness of knowledge and information sharing. 
Furthermore, the author is involved in a controversial project as Wikipedia, which in few years destroyed the well-known idea that only experts and scholars can write an encyclopedia.
Even though there is an ongoing debate on issues quality, review and evaluation, it is nonetheless a fact that this peer-based bottom-up approach is a brand new way of 
knowledge production, which is still far from being understood. 

In a case study approach, the investigator cannot be an outside observer. 
In such cases, biases are unavoidable. It is however patent that bias should not affect the result of the research significantly.

On the other hand, it is hoped that engagement with literature, observation and different opinions decreased researcher's bias and increased credibility of the study.
%Interviewees participation and authority often overcame researcher's opinions, who did make the effort to present a neutral

\section{Case study}
The researcher selected to investigate the topic of collaboration among the Humanities community in the Italian context, to discover the possibility 
of the existence of collaborative digital libraries: therefore, case study was the most obvious choice.

Experimental research, ethnography, action and historical research were suddenly excluded for obvious reasons. 
Experimental research is rarely used in a study that involves human subjects opinions and insights,
and ethnography demanded prolonged engagement within the context, as well a more sociological approach. 
Action research is used for investigating \textquotedblleft organizational functions\textquotedblright and 
\textquotedblleft improving service provision, encouraging reflective practice ans structuring and disseminating experience to the wider 
community\textquotedblright \cite[p. 134]{pickard2007}. 
Historical research was not helpful for exploring contemporary issues that do have little history. 

Surveys too were estimated not to fit the objectives of the study: they would aim to \textquotedblleft study relationships among specific variables, 
which are identified at the outset of the research and stated as either an hypothesis or a research question, or to describe certain characteristics of 
the population\textquotedblright \cite[p. 95]{pickard2007}. Surveys also need a probability sampling that was not suitable for the design of the research, 
because research questions needed members of the Humanities community expert in digital libraries and collaborative projects. This was due to the fact that 
it is very unlikely to gain meaningful data about a specific and advanced topic as \textquotedblleft collaborative digital libraries\textquotedblright 
if participants are not aware of that possibility and have no experience 
in the field. 

Theoretically, Delphi group was a possible choice as a method: nonetheless, it was considered too structured ans highly complex to organize for a first-time researcher as the author.
Furthermore, lack of economic and time resources, as well as the experience of the researcher, did automatically exclude a possible application.

%be too shallow, not allowing researcher nor participants to have in-depth insights
On the other hand, case study is a immersive research method that allow researcher to study a whole context and develop an in-depth analysis of a single case.
It allows purposive sampling and a very constructivist approach, as well as engagement with participants. 
Therefore, \textit{Case study} was the research method chosen for the present research. 

\citeA{pickard2007} reports a quote from \citeA[p. 23]{yin2002} as a definition of \textit{case study}:
\begin{quotation}
[case study is] an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context; when the boundaries between phenomenon and 
context are not clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used»
|\cite[p. 23]{yin2002}
\end{quotation}
A case study is a well-suited strategy to empirically investigate \textquotedblleft contemporary phenomena\textquotedblright, 
such as collaboration among humanists and potentialities of collaborative digital libraries for researchers and scholars. 

Case study is a term used for different methods, although is very specific. 
It should operate in well delimited boundaries: for the present study, the Humanities community in the Italian context was therefore chosen for several reasons. 
It can be regarded as a broad \textit{community of practice} (CoP), following definiton by \citeA[p. 140]{wenger2000}
\begin{quotation}{[CoP] are groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise – engineers engaged in deep-water drilling, for
example, consultants who specialize in strategic marketing, or frontline managers in charge of check processing at a large commercial bank. 
Some communities of practice meet regularly – for lunch on Thursdays, say. 
Others are connected primarily by e-mail networks. A community of practice may or may not have an explicit agenda on a given week,
and even if it does, it may not follow the agenda closely. Inevitably, however, people in communities of practice share their experiences and knowledge in free-ﬂowing, creative ways that foster new
approaches to problems.}
\end{quotation}

And \citeA{wenger2006}

\begin{quotation}
{Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.}
\end{quotation}

As a CoP, the Humanities community in the Italian context:
\begin{enumerate}
\item geographically circumscribed
\item naturally defined
\item easily reachable
\item sharing the same mother language 
\item sharing the same object of study
\end{enumerate}

Operating in the same context, the community shares the advantage of working with texts that are mainly out od copyright, allowing any sort derivative work or analysis. 
Avoiding all the legal issues related with intellectual property make the community free to operate and work with texts in an open and potentially innovative environment. 
This reason made it perfectly fit the objectives of the present study: the environment was therefore suitable for a delimited and in-depth study about collaboration and potentialities of collaboratories.

Case study is an \textquotedblleft iterative process: once in the field the researcher will allow the design of the study to develop as 
he gains into the salient issues\textquotedblright 
\cite[p. 87]{pickard2007}.
The whole research process followed as much as possible phases identified by \citeA{lincoln1985}:
\begin{enumerate}
\item  orientation and overview
\item  focused exploration
\item  member checking
\end{enumerate}

In the first phase, a research focus had been established, namely \textquotedblleft collaboratories digital libraries\textquotedblright, 
and \textquotedblleft issue subquestions\textquotedblright \cite{stake1995} 
followed naturally through the process.

The digital humanities community has been chosen to be the \textit{unit of analysis}.

A personal wiki system has been used during the whole research process, acting also as a \textit{case database}, storing notes and transcriptions of interviews. 
Customized folders archived the audio files of the online interviews.

Second phase, focused exploration, comprehend data collection and iterative analysis, which means reacting properly to emerging themes. As \citeA{pickard2007} suggests, 
\textquotedblleft one of the greatest case study benefits is the ability to respond as [the researcher's] knowledge of the case increases\textquotedblright.

Third phase include member checking and verification of analysis: exiting the field is then the final stage of the research process, 
when all data cease to reveal new information.

\section{Target group and sampling}

Interviews participants has been chosen following purposive snowball sampling. 
All of them (but one) were Humanities scholars working in advanced digital projects. 
The research questions needed data that would have been answered only by people with great knowledge of online projects, 
In fact, all the participants worked in the field of Digital Humanities: 
the main parameter for the choice was the in-depth knowledge of these scholars in Digital Humanities and the digital environment. 
Though their expertise were different disciplines of Humanities (mostly were philologists), every participant
did have competence in Digital Humanities related project and experience with online texts and digital libraries. 

\subsection{Purposive snowball sampling}
\citeA[p. 64]{pickard2007} cites \citeA[p. 169]{patton2002} about purposive sampling
\begin{quotation}
The logic of purposeful sampling lies in selecting \textit{information-rich cases} for study in depth. 
Information-rich cases are those from which one can learn a great deal about issues of central importance to the purpose of the research
\end{quotation}

Purposive sampling is the preferred practice for case study method, and can be run in two different ways, \textit{a priori criteria} sampling and \textit{snowball} sampling.

As the present study is the first attempt of the researcher to qualitative research, it demanded some boundaries to the sample, 
and \citeA{flick2002} suggests a priori criteria to be more helpful for 
\textquotedblleft analyzing, differentiating and perhaps testing assumptions about common features and differences between groups\textquotedblright 
(p. 63, cited in Pickard, 2007, p. 64).

Nonetheless, \citeA{pickard2007} also highlights that \textquotedblleft in any bounded system there are \textquotedblleft key informants\textquotedblright 
who will have a great deal of knowledge about the case as a whole and what goes on at a variety of levels within the case\textquotedblright.
As the research aimed to understand and investigate opinions of the Humanities community Italian context regarding collaboration and collaborative digital 
libraries, help of key informants was estimated to be extremely useful and snowball sampling seemed to fit perfectly the purpose and the interactive 
design of the research.
Thus, snowball sampling was actually chosen: commonly, its exit strategy for is \textit{redundancy} of information gathered \cite{lincoln1985}. 
Moreover, literature suggests also that even though the choice of the first key informant is likely to be biased, the subsequent gathering of 
the participants reduces the bias \cite{ford1975}.

\subsection{Key informants}
Key informants of the study were two, one from the US context (who suggested an extensive bibliography to meet 
the lack of Italian references on the topic) and the other one was Umberto Eco. 

Professor Eco was interviewed for a project called \textquotedblleft Wiki@Home\textquotedblright, supported by the Italian chapter of the 
Wikimedia Foundation\footnote{\url{http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home}}, Wikimedia Italia\footnote{\url{http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Who_we_are}}. 
Wikimedia Italia (WMI) is an association for open culture and open knowledge, and it supports Wikimedia projects as Wikipedia and Wikisource. 
Wiki@Home is a subproject of WMI which is aimed to interview important members of the cultural and entertainment world. 
In this context, the researcher contacted and gained and appointment with professor Eco to interview him about Internet, collaboration and Wikipedia. 
The researcher thus exploited this unique occasion to utilize professor Eco as a key informant for the study, 
investigating topics as collaboration between scholars, especially in the Italian context. 
Interview revealed to be extremely rich and helpful to gain in-depth information about Humanities in the Italian area and their 
approach to Internet and collaboration. 
The transcript of the interview is available (in Italian) under \textbf{Creative Commons-Attribution-Shar Alike} license at the URL: 
\url{http://it.wikinews.org/wiki/Intervista_a_Umberto_Eco}

The English translation will be available in \texttt{Appendix 1}. 

\subsection{Interviewees}
Interviewees were 5 members of the Digital Humanities Italian community, each with a different specialization (greek philology, modern literature, digital libraries, even history of logic), 
but all involved in digital humanities and digital libraries. 
They are working in academic and research institutions in Italy, UK and US.

The first interviewee was contacted after an overview of the literature and a conversation with the advisor: the others were too selected from the literature
and with the method of \textit{snowball sampling}. 
At the end of each interview, scholars were requested to suggest other people to be interviewed, and often participants converged proposing the same names. 
People who were named by more than one participant were contacted: every name has been discussed with the thesis advisor.

Participants have been labeled by numbers, from \texttt{I1} to \texttt{I5}.
From interviewee \texttt{I1} (who served also as a pilot for interviews), \texttt{I6} and \texttt{I3} were individuated.
The researcher and the advisor agreed to interview \texttt{I2}, who then suggested also \texttt{I3} and \texttt{I4}. 

After \texttt{I5}, the information gathered started to be redundant, which according to \citeA{pickard2007} is a condition for exit fieldwork; 
thus, data collection stopped, with the consent of the advisor. 

All but one the participants were Italian: therefore, all but one of the interviews was conducted in Italian.

Italian audience had been privileged for several reasons:
\begin{itemize}
\item  the core interest of the research was on collaborative digital libraries for the Humanities Italian community
\item  speaking Italian allowed both the researcher and participants to be more comfortable during interviews and helped in-depth data analysis
\end{itemize}
The researcher spent great effort in translating correctly interviews, not to mispell or provide a wrong interpretation of interviewees' words. 
The transcription of Eco's interview provided in \texttt{Appendix 1} has been translated collaboratively among members of Wikimedia Italy: one of them is actually a 
professional translator and guaranteed a correct and formal approach for the translation. 

Although the research question was focused on the Humanities community in the Italian context, sampling did not choose only Italian philologists for purpose: 
in fact, context suggested that only people previously involved in digital humanities and digital libraries could understand and 
have motivated opinions about a specific and in-depth question as the research questions of the present studies. 
%All participants did have knowledge or competences in the Italian studies community, that is the community of practice related to Italian ancient texts. 
Sometime, they did work in related but different communities (i.e. the Greek philology community). 
However, difference of language does not seem an obstacle for transferability of both the structure and even the outcomes of the study.
A crucial aspect of the present case study is obviously environmental culture of the community, and everyone but one of the interviewees are Italian.
This choice was made to explore the Italian environment of humanities but not being subjected only to a single community of practice.

\section{Data collection techniques}
To explore the digital humanities community views, opinions and feelings about collaboratories digital libraries, the main data collection technique used were \textit{semi-structured interviews}.

The research question and objectives demanded an in-depth investigation in participants' opinions and tacit knowledge and experience about collaboration. 
As the topic touched the entire community culture and psychology, the data collection technique needed to explore deeply and broadly participants thoughts.  
As people, when asked a question, do not want to write much to carefully explain their insights and thoughts, semi structure, spoken interviews seemed the best technique to collect sensitive data.

This technique resulted to be the correct one: data gathered were rich and opened different questions and paths to be explored. 

Interviews were semi-structured, with few open-ended and broad questions, in order to keep the conversation between 
the researcher and the interviewee consistent but open to new directions and topics related to the research question.
Interaction revealed to be fundamental: every interview informed the following, and every conversation were gained experience from the past one. 

Interviews were conducted online, with the VOIP sofware Skype\footnote{\url{http://www.skype.com}}.
They were synchronous and spoken, but computer-mediated and with no webcam (practically, they were \textit{telephonic interviews}). The procedure has been chosen for several reasons:
\begin{itemize}
\item  interviewees live in different cities in Italy and therefore it would have been really time and money consuming traveling to meet all of them.
\item  most of interviewees had high computer skills and interviewing online did not constitute a problem.
\item  doing \textit{telephonic interviews} with the computer allows taking notes directly on the personal wiki and real-time interaction with interviewees, browsing websites and sending links or files. Furthermore, it allowed automatic recording of the speeches and chat logs. 
\end{itemize}
There were some exceptions where interviews had been conducted live or by e-mail.

\subsection{Interviews}
\begin{quotation}
Conversation is a basic mode of human interaction. Human beings talk to each other{\dots} 
Through conversations we get to know other people, get to learn about their experiences, feelings, and hopes and the world they live in.
\cite[p. 23]{kvale1996}
\end{quotation}
Interviews are frequently used data collection techniques in information research \cite{pickard2007}.
They are applied to \textquotedblleft access what was in, and on, the interviewee's mind\textquotedblright \cite{stenhouse1984}.

As the present research is focused in exploring researchers and users opinions about possibilities and potentialities of a \textit{collaboratory digital library}, 
interviews allows them to express complex and articulated thoughts.
\citeA{lincoln1985} suggest that interview permit respondents to go back and forth in time, interpreting past and present and predicting the future: 
the explicit request of foreseeing developments in digital libraries and scholarship collaboration made interviews perfectly fitting data collection techniques.

Furthermore, \textquotedblleft qualitative, descriptive, in-depth data [{\dots}] specific to the individual\textquotedblright \cite[p. 172]{pickard2007} 
were requested by the purposes of the research. 

\citeA{kvale1996} lays out seven stages of the interview process, (\textit{thematizing, designing, interviewing, transcribing, analyzing, verifying, reporting}) 
but \citeA{pickard2007} argues process is often not as linear as suggested. She hints to use the stages as a broad outline of the process, but being \textquotedblleft prepared to iteration\textquotedblright 
(p. 173). 
Moreover, interviewing as a whole is a practice that is \textit{learned by doing} and often beginners start being confident with their personal procedure after several interviews. 

\begin{description}
\item[Thematizing]
\end{description}
Is necessary to be very clear about the purpose of the research and the topic that is being investigated. Themes and questions are needed to be appropriate for each interviewee, 
because it is likely to ask different people different things. 

It is suggested to structure themes of the interview in a natural order to allow 
\textquotedblleft interviewee to follow a logical thought process and allow[ing] the interviewer to gain a growing understanding of feelings, behavior and beliefs\textquotedblright (p. 173).

\begin{description}
\item[Designing]
\end{description}
The purpose of using an interview guide is to \textquotedblleft ensure that each interview covers basically the same ground but gives the interviewer considerable discretion in the conduct of the interview\textquotedblright 
\cite[p. 475]{ellis1993}.
The guide controls the interview and its dependent to the chosen type of interview: 
it can range from a strict script (actually similar to a questionnaire) to a general list of topics to be covered during the conversation.  

Interviews accomplished were more of the second type: they were semi-structured, and only few questions and topics (i.e the research questions) were necessary and did recur in each conversation. 
The guide of the interview was the following:
\begin{itemize}
\item self presentation of the interviewee, explaining his academic background and interests
\item the research questions
\begin{enumerate}
 \item \textbf{H2}: Can a digital library for the Italian studies community be \textit{collaborative}?
 \item \textbf{H2}: Can a digital library for the Italian studies community be a \textit{collaboratory}?
 \item \textbf{H3}: Can a digital library for the Italian studies community be built upon a \textit{wiki}?
\end{enumerate}
\item an opinion about facilitators and barriers to collaboration in humanities and digital humanities
\item an opinion about features and services of possible collaborative frameworks for humanists
\end{itemize}

\begin{description}
\item[Interviewing]
\end{description}
Interviewing is heavily dependent on the rapport between interviewer and interviewee: conversation has to be as much as relaxing and comfortable as possible, 
and is responsibility of the interviewer to make it happen. 
Furthermore, interviewer needs to be prepared on topics covered by the interview and react properly to answers: 
questions has to be asked and answer can lead to unforeseen but meaningful paths.

Role of the interviewer is \textquotedblleft to \textit{listen}, \textit{reflect} and \textit{respond}\textquotedblright \cite[p. 177]{pickard2007}.

Due to the non-existence, in the Italian context, of collaborative and collaboratories digital libraries, it was sometime difficult to provide interviewees 
with practical examples of features and characteristics of such projects. 
In those cases, the interviewer had to discuss hypothetically and with scenarios on what kinds of services, functionalities and features a collaboratory digital library
may offer. Discussions were therefore theoretical and focused on potentialities, barriers and facilitators. 

The consent of interviewees was asked in order to voice record the responses and discussions arisen out of the interview. 

Audio recording revealed fundamentally important to keeping all the data and listen interviews several times: 
furthermore, it provided security and allowed interviewer to be totally engaged in conversation not taking care of writing every important quote or note.
Interviews were audio recorded with \texttt{Skype Call Recorder}\footnote{\url{http://atdot.ch/scr}}, a free/open source software for Linux that automatically records 
Skype conversations and save them in different formats. 
Audio recordings were mp3 files stored in different folders, divided by authors.

\begin{description}
\item[Transcribing]
\end{description}
Transcription is suggested to be done as soon as possible after the interview.
Qualitative research needs engaging with interviews as their done, to look for emerging patterns and important data. 
Transcribing informs researcher and provides insights of the interviewing process, making him aware of possible flaws of his procedure.
Transcribing were therefore done commonly the second day after the interview, because most of the interviews were recorded in the evening.

\begin{description}
\item[Analysis]
\end{description}
Analysis \textquotedblleft is a constant, ongoing element of the research process\textquotedblright (p. 178).
It will be described later on.

\begin{description}
\item[Verifying]
\end{description}
\citeA{kvale1996} intend the verification as the stage to understand if the interview covered the extent of the research question.
\citeA[p. 178]{pickard2007} adds that verification is \textquotedblleft a form of \textit{member check}\textquotedblright, a concept introduced by \citeA{lincoln1985}.
Returning to the interviewees after transcription and analysis can confirm or deny if the interviewer had understood what they really meant, and can also be an opportunity to harvest new data.
Websites and other literature were used to verify some of the issues that were mentioned in the process of the interview; 
mutually, projects and articles suggested in interviews were explored for in-depth understanding of the interviews themselves. 
The process also helped to verify the names of initiatives and projects.

\begin{description}
\item[Reporting]
\end{description}
Evidence from interviews must form the foundation of the new researcher's emerging theory, and this must be present in the final report. 
\citeA{pickard2007} highlights that \textquotedblleft spoken word is evidence\textquotedblright (p. 179), 
hence important verbatim quotes important were reported.

A pilot, unstructured interview has been conducted with the first key informant, who is also a friend of the researcher. 
The interview has been useful also to get acquainted with the interview process and ways of exploring the defined topics.
After the pilot and a discussion with the thesis advisor, a set of open-ended questions had been defined to be the guide of further interviews.

\section{Computer as a research instrument}
In interpretivist research, the main research instrument is the human himself, who explores, analysis and interpret a phenomenon. 

However, it has previously stated that the \textit{computer} has been used as a research instrument too. 
The statement wanted to emphasize the used of softwares as crucial tools of the writing and the design of the present study. 

Several programs has been used for developing this work:
\begin{itemize}
\item a wiki software (\texttt{MediaWiki})
\item a typesetting software (\LaTeX)
\item a concept map software (\texttt{Cmap})
\item a VoIP software (\texttt{Skype}) 
\item a recording software (\texttt{Skype Call Recorder})
\item an automatic translator (\texttt{Google Translate}) 
\item an English thesaurus (\texttt{OpenOffice.org}) 
\end{itemize}

Developing the technical framework has been very natural for the researcher, who is used to work with different softwares and has an expert knowledge in computers. 
Yet, a good amount of time has been invested in selecting and developing tools: this however is not seen as a wasting of time, but as a good opportunity to gain deeper 
comprehension of useful tools for writing and research and, moreover, an experiment to confirm the idea of \textit{laboratory} proposed by the present study.   

It is in fact the opinion of the researcher that a good technological framework is a fantastic boost for innovation, 
especially when the framework is collaborative and \textit{collaboratively improvable}. 

Eventually, the whole framework was as valuable aid the researcher: the developing was both time-consuming (sometimes) and time-saving (often), but it was definitely worth the effort. 
Furthermore, experience gained will surely help the researcher in future studies. 

Softwares and their uses for the scope of the present study will be explained in the following sections. 

\subsection{\LaTeX}
\LaTeX \hspace{2pt}is a document markup language used for typesetting. Although quite complex, is widely used in hard sciences and academia for scholarship communication, 
due to the huge flexibility and publishing feature. LaTeX documents can achieve great level of complexity, containing tables, images, mathematical and scientific formulas.
A fundamental feature of LaTeX is to apply a WYSIWYM (\textit{What You See Is What You Mean}) approach 
instead of the more common WYSIWYG (\textit{What You See Is What You Get}) approach, used by normal word processors. 
This allows a much more comprehension and control over document structure and layout. 
Latex technically \textit{compiles} the source text as a \textit{code}, automatically taking care of a bug part of the structure, layout, reference, settings.
Moreover, while LaTeX at the beginning is complex to understand and time-wasting, eventually it reveals extremely time-saving for organizing the text and the 
layout completely in automatic. 
All chapters, sections, figures and quotes are automatically counted and thus indexes are automatically generated, with the precise chapter and page. 
No time is wasted to generate table of contents or list of figures and tables. Very little time too is needed for generating bibliographies. 
Being a document markup language, LaTeX is highly customizable, providing hundreds of packages for different needs.

In LaTeX, it is possible to organize and compute directly the code of the document. With a reference management system called \texttt{BibTex}, 
it is possible to directly \textit{compute} all quotations and references of the bibliography. 
Therefore bibliographies are not written by the author, but by the program itself who reads the tags put by the author and 
correlates them with proper metadata stored in an additional file also created by the author. 
This allows to maintain distinct the database of metadata related to the bibliography and the paper that is written, which will harvest the data when needed. 
An example will be provided. 
The metadata of a book, as 
\begin{verbatim}
 @book{pickard2007,
  title = {Research methods in information},
  author = {Pickard, A.J.},
  year = {2007},
  address = {London},
  publisher = {Facet Publishing},
 }
\end{verbatim}
are contained in a file called \texttt{Methodology.bib}. Then, in the \textit{Methodology} chapter that book can be cited in various ways, recalling author and year, 
with or without parenthesis, etc. For example, with the two codes:
\begin{verbatim}
 \cite{pickard2007}
 \citeA{pickard2007} 
\end{verbatim}
they will respectively lay out like this:
\begin{quotation}
 \cite{pickard2007}
 \citeA{pickard2007}
\end{quotation}

Thus, the bibliography of the present study is available as a separate file, fully interoperable with normal standards and software using BibTex. 
Needless to say, the work is reusable for further documents, with no other effort needed.   

For this document a package as \texttt{apacite} is being used that follows the APA bibliographic style\footnote{Actually, the \texttt{apacite} module is brand new, 
developed at the end of 2009, and there are still some issues and bugs to fix. The researcher struggled to present a layout perfectly following APA guidelines, 
but sometime exceptions could not be avoided. It is hoped that errors would not be too evident and may be forgiven for the not direct responsibility of the writer. What is more, 
some packages do conflict one with each other for obscure bugs that the researcher cannot explain nor solve. One of them is the fact that the package for \textit{hyphenation} sometimes do not
hyphen properly some words. Unfortunately, the researcher could not fix this kind of errors.}. 
This means also that the \texttt{Bibliography} section is following APA guidelines. 
More styles are available, supported by related packages. 

Moreover, the researcher found extremely helpful and time-saving that scholar search engines like Google Scholar\footnote{\url{http://scholar.google.com}} 
or CiteSeerX\footnote{\url{http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/}} could export bibliographic data directly in the BibTeX format. 

Thus, LaTeX allows great flexibility in bibliography styles and formatting. 

The researcher chose to utilize this particular program for several reasons: even though it is complex and not well-suited for neophyte, LaTeX is an extremely powerful
program. What is more, the researcher felt as really important to utilize a software used mostly in scientific studies. 

In fact, as the thesis is focused on collaboration in Humanities, it is though important to stress and emphasize 
a more interdisciplinary approach for both Humanities and hard sciences.
Collaboration is need not only within disciplinary groups, but also and above all \textit{between} disciplinary groups.
It is a strong belief of the researcher that interdisciplinarity is the main road for all sciences: therefore, an useful tool as LaTeX should be known and used also 
outside the boundaries of hard sciences.

\subsection{Wiki}
A wiki software has been used as a research instrument for several reasons. The researcher had it installed months before the study began, 
therefore it did not constitute a further complication for the research process. 
The wiki had been as a flexible framework, acting as a
\begin{itemize}
\item case database
\item data analysis framework
\item word-processing software
\end{itemize}

MediaWiki\footnote{\url{http://www.mediawiki.org}} is the wiki software engine utilized for the present research. 
It is a web-based wiki engine used by Wikipedia and all the Wikimedia projects, 
and it is highly stable, scalable and flexible, supported by a very active community of developers \cite{koblas2006}. 
Being \textit{free software}\footnote{Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.}, it supports hundreds of extensions and plug-ins 
written by his community of users. 
MediaWiki is written in the PHP programming language, and the version utilized for the study applied MySQL as relational database management system.

The software provides a special mark-up language (a very common feature in wikis) that simplifies HTML language: 
it has been used mainly for formatting text and creating links to other wiki pages. 
Also, MediaWiki supports rich content generated through specialized syntax: for example, the software comes with support for rendering mathematical formulas using \LaTeX, and 
extensions that allows exporting of normal wiki pages in \LaTeX or directly printed in PDF. 

\subsubsection{Templates as editable tools}
An crucial feature of MediaWiki is the possibility of creating \textit{templates}.
\begin{quotation}
Templates are text blocks that can be dynamically loaded inside another page whenever that page is requested. 
The template is a special link in double curly brackets (for example \textquotedblleft{{{Disputed|date=October 2008}}}\textquotedblright), which calls the template [\dots] to load in place of the template. 
Templates support parameters, so that parts of the text can be substituted for each specific use case.
\cite{wikipediaMW}
\end{quotation} 

Templates are used for every kind of activity, from creating boxes to standardize information to automatically categorize pages. 
They can serve many different purposes at once, just depending upon the complexity of the code and the ability of the coder. 
Furthermore, wikis are often free licensed and open, allowing users and readers to access the code of every page: templates are therefore open to modification 
and open to be studied from their source code. 

The wiki served different purposes and was utilized in different manners during the stages of the research process. 

\subsubsection{Literature review}
Most part of the literature reviewd was digital, so several folders were created to organize the articles to review. 
The Okular software\footnote{\url{http://okular.kde.org/}} was used to read and annotate PDFs, meanwhile one page for each article reviewed was created in the wiki 
by the researcher.
In each of those pages important quotations from articles were copied and pasted and personal notes were written.

Furthermore, specific \textit{templates} for \textit{tagging} articles were created: every time a sensitive topic or a keyword was mentioned, a related tag was created by the researcher.
In this way, a \textit{controlled vocabulary} of important terms and keywords \textit{emerged} from literature; each of those keywords created a \textit{category} in the wiki that included all the articles (and interviews) that mentioned the particular keyword.

For example, if the word \texttt{collaboratories} was mentioned within an article, the researcher marked up the word with the code 
\begin{verbatim}
{{Tag|WORD}}
\end{verbatim}
in this way:
\begin{verbatim}
{{Tag|Collaboratories}}
\end{verbatim}

This automatically created the category in the wiki called 
\begin{verbatim}
[[Category:Collaboratories]]
\end{verbatim}

All the articles marked up with the template \texttt{\{\{Tag|Collaboratories\}\}} were stored automatically in the category \texttt{[[Category:Collaboratories]]}.
This happened for all the keywords the researchers decided to mark up. 

Therefore, the emerging list of categories was a sort of \textit{controlled vocabulary}: each important topic in the literature was chosen to be a TAG (thus, a category), 
and sometimes synonyms where conducted to the same category. 
Although the system was far from being a proper controlled vocabulary, 
compiling the list during the literature review helped the researcher finding the core of fundamental keywords. 

Moreover, the list revealed to be \textit{weighted}: as the categories listed showed automatically how many articles were contained inside, 
a quick glimpse of the category/keyword list could offer an ostensible but helpful estimation of the knowledge base.   

In fact, the vocabulary was used to develop the \textit{theoretical} and \textit{conceptual framework} \cite{pickard2007}, 
that has been represented by a \textit{concept map}(fig.1).
Eventually, both the concept map and the vocabulary were used as a framework for the \textit{critical review}.
The list of 74 categories is available in \texttt{Appendix 2}. 

The list of TAGs is far from being complete and coherent, because neither all articles were submitted to the same procedure nor the researcher had been totally coherent is assigning TAGs. 
Nevertheless, the procedure proved itself to be engaging and helpful, forcing the reviewer to develop a comprehensive list of topics and keywords to define the domain of the study
directly taking topics from literature. 
Far from being a quantitative and exact approach, this procedure could still considered partly \textit{bottom up}, 
(at least in the phase of pulling out meaningful words from articles), and could be developed further with proper resources of time and expertise in research methods and programming.

In fact, the procedure described above can be accepted as experimental, as an attempt of the researcher to both show flexibility of wikis
and engage in a negotiation with the software and methods for data analysis. 

\subsubsection{Interviews}
Interviews were semi-structured and recorded via Skype, with no webcam used. They can be so regarded as telephonic interviews, 
with the additional feature that, being online, both the interviewer and the interviewees could browse the Web and interact, suggest websites, 
visit mentioned projects, check information.
The interviews were transcribed directly, and as soon as possible, in the wiki and consequently annotated and marked up for data analysis.

A procedure and the necessary technical tools were developed for \textit{transcluding} important claims: when in the transcriptions were found \textit{facilitators} and \textit{barriers} 
regarding the research question, they were highlighted with different colors and marked up with a particular code.
The code, a dedicated template, \textit{transcluded} automatically the claims into other specific pages, and directly collected them in categories.

\section{Data analysis}
For data analysis, \textquotedblleft constant comparative analysis\textquotedblright has been applied. 
\citeA{strauss1987} originally developed it for use in the grounded theory methodology of Glaser \& Strauss (1967).
The strategy involves examining data while comparing the with all the similar or different data gathered during the fieldwork. 
This strategy is very common and it must come out from (and be grounded in) raw data, in a \textit{bottom up} approach: 
categories have to be inductive and emerge directly from the data, and not be established a priori, 
although it is inevitable that prior research will influence choice of important issues. 
\citeA[p. 31]{melia1997} states: 
\begin{quotation}
The original version of grounded theory stressed the idea that theory emerged from, and was grounded in, data. 
Careful analysis of data items using the constant comparative method 
would lead to the emergence of conceptual categories that would describe and explain the phenomenon under study. 
\end{quotation}
Nevertheless, Strauss did revise his theory to still drive the coding from data but not also have a more structured approach. 
\citeA{strauss1998} suggest to divide the coding in three series of activities: 
\begin{itemize}
\item open coding
\item axial coding
\item selective coding
\end{itemize}
Using a wiki as a research instrument revealed extremely helpful for memo writing and interacting with data.
The wiki acted a framework where the researcher could construct and develop proper tools which helped him in the analysis, as the before mentioned TAGs and template for highlight 
and transclusion of meaningful text.

\subsection{Open coding}
Open coding is defined as \textquotedblleft the analytic process through which concepts are identified and their properties and dimensions are discovered in 
data \textquotedblright \citeA[101]{strauss1998}.
It is an initial phase where the researcher examine the data searching for difference and similarities of single parts of the data themselves.
Researcher had to identify discrete concepts, which are the \textquotedblleft basic units of analysis of the emerging theory\textquotedblright \cite{strauss1998}.
Pickard (2007) suggests to create a category for each concept discovered: the category can then be described with a set of properties and dimension to add clarity.
Developing the list of categories will lead to complete the basis of the emerging theory. 

Using interviews as data collection technique, the data provided were transcriptions of in-depth conversations. 
The researcher executed this phase of data analysis with the help of the wiki system. 
Using a similar approach to the process of tagging content described above, the researcher created ad hoc templates in the wiki to highlight sentences or 
little paragraphs with different color. 
Color chosen were blue or red: blue indicated elements positive for the research questions, red indicated negative elements. 
For example, facilitators to collaboration were colored in blue, while barrier to collaboration were colored in red. 
All facilitators and barriers to were \textit{transcluded} with the same wiki template in a dedicated page, which listed all facilitators and barriers to collaboration.

Although, due to scarcity of time, the researcher could not dedicate plenty of time to development of tools in the wiki regarding data analysis, 
it is important to state that open coding is a phase of data analysis that could gain much help from a digital system like the wiki proposed. 

In fact, \citeA[p. 243]{pickard2007} describe the process of creating and organizing categories as follows:
\begin{quotation}
I ask my students to imagine they have a row of shoe boxes. On the side of each shoebox they write the name and definition 
(discrete properties and dimensions) of a category; they create each new shoe-box in response to an actual item of data, not from an abstract concept.
That means that every shoe-box contains at least one item of data; each time a new item of data is located in the evidence it is cut out and dropped 
in that box or photocopied if it can fit into more than one box.
\end{quotation}

Within a proper digital environment, the process describe above could be applied with much less effort (and waste) than cutting documents and shoe-boxes.
In the wiki system utilized by the researcher, all data were reduced to a textual form and could immediately be categorized in few clicks. 
Also single parts of the transcriptions could be organized with \textit{ad hoc} templates (as the ones developed by the researcher), and much more could be done 
with proper time and computer skills. Simple action like copy, cut and paste could lead to extremely sophisticated organization of data, within a framework complex 
enough to allow hyperlink, categories and above all flexibility in customization and development of personalized tools. 
The wiki system proposed by the author is just a single instance, but it would like to suggest that a flexible approach could reveal extermely helpful for data analysis
and the whole research process. 

\subsection{Axial coding}
Moving from general categories of concepts to related sub-categories is moving from open coding to axial coding. 
Handling the categories themselves is a more refined task whose aim is the \textquotedblleft identification of the conditions that give rise to a particular 
phenomenon and the context it occurs\textquotedblright \cite[p. 243]{pickard2007}.
This type of coding is conducted in tandem with data collection: in fact, the researcher started to analyze the data meanwhile he was interviewing. 
Each interview was informed by the previous one, and the author often asked the interviewee for confirmation of hypothesis and relations between concept 
raised in the analysis.  
The phase of axial coding is to searching for links between categories, and checking the content of the category itself.  

\subsection{Selective coding}
Selective coding is \textquotedblleft the process of integrating and refining a theory\textquotedblright \cite[p. 143]{strauss1998}.
It is the final stage of data analysis, where theory has reached a saturation and no new connections, properties and relations are emerging from analysis.
\textit{Conceptual framework} is the outcome of this phase.
In this phase grounded theory is demanded to provide a section for recommendations and suggestions of further research.   
The result of the selective coding can be read in the concept map developed to illustrate the conceptual framework, in \texttt{Chapter 4}. 

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