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Tagging (also known as coding) is a research approach to organize, analyze, and make sense of qualitative data. Qualitative data are usually text-based information, such as transcripts of interviews or focus group discussions; or responses from open-ended survey questions.
Without tagging, text-based information can snowball into a large amount of data that can be overwhelming to understand and analyze! Tagging is a smart and efficient way to process and manage your qualitative data as it allows you to look for common themes or outcomes across all the text-based information gathered and later, summarize them into key points or trends.
Some examples of insights or trends you can uncover from tagging qualitative data are:
Frequency of issues your customers report on (based on your customer feedback surveys)
Main challenges your community faces (based on your open-ended survey questions)
Additional trainings identified by trainees (based on your training feedback forms)
Top outcomes achieved by your grantees (based on your annual grantee reports)
Top recommendation from members to improve programs (based on your monitoring reports)
Tagging supports you in identifying patterns, insights, and takeaways that might otherwise remain buried in your sea of data. It’s a powerful tool to transform text into impact - and ImpactMapper does this!
Before you start tagging your reports and surveys, you first need to set them up in the platform. Here’s what you need to know to get your tags ready for use.
As you begin using ImpactMapper, you might hear or read “Tag your report” or “Tag your survey.” But what exactly are tags?
Tags (or codes), are the short labels you create and apply to the texts in your reports or survey responses. The tags encapsulate your key themes, ideas, or taxonomies.
For example, you can apply the tag “training outcome” or "strengthened confidence in their knowledge" to the text in the report “the women feel more confident in their knowledge of the topic after the training.” See other examples of tags here.
NOTE
ImpactMapper also has a pre-list of key themes or ideas to help you build your taxonomy or get started in tagging right away if you do not already have a taxonomy!
There are two ways you can create tags in ImpactMapper.
The first approach is to create them via the Edit Tags page by clicking the Create button.
Alternatively, you can create a tag while tagging your report by opening the settings of the report tagging interface, then press Create tag.
When creating tags in ImpactMapper, keep the following key points in mind:
Tag groups: Tags are organized under a tag group, which serves as a higher-level category. This creates two levels of tagging (or hierarchical tagging).
Parent Tag Group or Nested Tags: A Tag Group can house other tag groups. You can use this for a complex and more detailed tagging structure.
The image above shows that Child Care and Clinic Expansion are separate tag groups. However, as seen in the example below, Clinic Expansion was placed underneath the Child Care tag group, making the latter a Parent Tag Group.
Metatags: You can further organize your tag groups using metatags for broader categories of analysis. Examples of metatags could be “Challenges,” “Outcomes,” “Lessons Learned,” and so on. In the example below, the texts highlighted in yellow are the metatags created for the tag groups Behavior and Child Care
Type of Tags: Aside from the default text, you have options to create other kinds of tags such as quantity (for reach tags), currency, and location. You can use these types of tags both on your reports and surveys.
Now that your tags have been set up, it's time to put them to work.
There are two ways you can tag your data in ImpactMapper: Deductive and Inductive
Deductive tagging involves using tags from a pre-set of ideas or key themes—this can be your theory of change, strategic plan, results framework, or grantmaking taxonomy.
Inductive tagging involves creating tags as you read your report or survey. There is no pre-list of tags and you make the tags (together with their key themes or categories) as they emerge from the data.
Tag your transcripts, grantee reports, evaluation reports, progress reports, etc., by uploading them in the Reports page.
To tag responses on your survey's open-ended questions, navigate to Responses page and open a survey response. Go to the open-ended question, toggle onEdit survey answers, and tag the answer.
You can also tag your survey via the Analysis page. Go to the question bar and select the survey question you want to tag. Scrolling down, the raw data of responses will be displayed. In our example, I would like to tag the survey response of Michael Chang, and I will click the plus (+) sign.
After clicking the plus (+) sign, a box will appear, displaying the survey response you want to tag. Highlight the response, then select the appropriate tag. A confirmation message, Tagging created will appear in the lower right corner of the screen, indicating that the text has been successfully tagged. Click Close to finish.
The tag you applied to the text will be displayed in yellow highlight in the list of responses.
NOTE
You can already assign tags to your single or multiple choice questions while creating the survey. This is to easily analyze response to these types of questions (i.e., you can assign the tag "Africa" if the respondent selected Kenya as their office headquarters). You can click here to know more.
Conversely, you can embed tags in your survey questions so you can let your respondent tag their own answers! Read this to know more.
You can manage your tags by opening the Tags page. Here, you can see all the tags you applied to your reports via the Review Taggings tab. You can create or edit your tags, create nested tags, move tags, or merge them on the Edit Tags page.
The Active Tags menu shows the tag you used for a particular project and also allows you to manually remove or add tags to be used for that project as needed.
The Import Tags allows you to upload all your tags at once, though this is experimental for now - reach out to us if you need help on this.
Transform your tags into cool and compelling graphics by navigating to the Charts page or Analysis tab of Surveys. With this feature, you can turn your tags into visually engaging graphs and charts allowing you and your audience to easily see trends, compare data, and draw insights - all right at your fingertips!
Impactmapper's robust tagging feature has powered many incredible and meaningful research initiatives, among them:
A significant knowledge product - Compendium on Lessons Learned and Good Practices to End Violence Against Women and Girls - has been produced by leveraging ImpactMapper's tagging tool. Commissioned by Spotlight Initiative, 360 annual reports and knowledge products from the country, regional offices, and headquarters, have been tagged for lessons learned and good practices- resulting in a compendium which showcases exemplary case studies across 6 different pillars of work and highlights lessons learned across 13 thematic areas.
Building Equity and Alignment for Environmental Justice (BEA), collects their grantee reports through ImpactMapper's survey tool, and the survey responses are tagged using the outcomes embedded in their Theory of Change. Designed with baseline and mid-term data, the tagging of the grantee reports allowed for a comprehensive over-time analysis, enabling BEA to identify outcomes and impact achieved by their grants. Visuals were created from the tagged data and was presented to annual board, donors, and communities.
Charge Incubator commissioned ImpactMapper to analyze the impact of their incubator program from 2017-2020. Interviews were conducted and transcripts were tagged in the platform. The evaluation resulted in the creation of this Impact Report.
UNFPA engaged ImpactMapper to conduct a synthesis evaluation that involved tagging 57 UNFPA program reports. The tagging focused on drawing key lessons learned aligned with UNFPA's three transformative goals: ending maternal mortality, eliminating gender-based violence and harmful practices and ensuring access to family planning. The synthesis findings were launched at UNFPA’s 50th anniversary and shed light on UNFPA’s global impact and lessons learned. The full report and the Lessons Learned policymaking brief can be found here.
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