People with Diabetes
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 Help

The help section should assist you with any queries you have about the Diabetes-Stories website. It is set out as a series of frequently asked question (FAQ). To see the answer to a particular FAQ just click on it.

General Questions
  Q. How can I search for a specific topic or subject?
Q. What is Diabetes-Stories?
Q. Can I use any of the materials on the website?
Q. Why do some of the tracks finish mid-sentence?
Q. Where can I find a definition of a word?

Technical Questions
  Q. Why can't I hear any of the interviews?
Q. What plug-ins do I need to use the site?
Q. Why is there no menu?

Transcript & Summary Research Questions
  Q. How do I get started?
Q. What are the advanced options?
Q. Can I use Wildcards to search with?
Q. How do I do complex searches?
Q. How do I search for a phrase?
Q. What is actually searched?

Database Research Questions
  Q. How do I build a Query?
Q. Why don't my Queries return anything?





General Answers

A. How can I search for a specific topic or subject?

If there in something in particular you are interested in then the research section is the place you should head to. This section allows you to search from simple specific subjects, for example 'Type 2 Diabetes', to complex queries such as 'People deceiving medical staff'. If you have an interest in the people behind the interviews you can additionally perform complex database queries.

A. What is Diabetes-Stories?

Diabetes-Stories is an online archive of the oral history of diabetes. We attempt to capture the essence of living with diabetes through the decades before this information is lost to us forever.

A. Can I use any of the materials on the website?

You are free to download the transcripts for use with other research tools such as NUD*ST, subject to our Terms of Use, but not the audio tracks and images.

A. Why do some of the tracks finish mid-sentence?

During the recordings, new audio tracks were created and numbered automatically for ease of access. A row of 3 dots in the written summaries indicates that a sentence overlaps 2 tracks. Click on the [Play On] button to continue to listen to the next track. To listen to the entire interview from the beginning, click on the [Play All] button.

A. Where can I find a definition of a word?

Diabetes-Stories has a Glossary of Terms for people not familiar with diabetes. It is available here. The Glossary can also be found under the Help menu and contains definitions of all medical and diabetes-related words used on this site.

Technical Answers

A. Why can't I hear any of the interviews?

You need an Mp3 player installed in order to listen to the interviews and sound samples. If you are having problems you may need to reinstall the Windows media player for PCs or Apple Quicktime for Macs.

A. What plug-ins do I need to use the site?

You will need a media player installed to be able to listen to the interviews and sound samples. This is because all the interviews and samples are streamed to allow both instant playback over the internet and to prevent the downloading of the files.

You will also need to allow Javascript to get the full functionality of the website: although you can view the website without this enabled, you will not get the full benefit of the experience. A medium level is enabled by default on most internet browsers. However those users with higher security setting will be given an option whether to Allow javascript or not: we suggest you allow it.

A. Why is there no menu?

This answer only applies to Internet Explorer. For other browsers please see your browser’s Help page, under the topic 'Security Settings'.
If there is no menu visible at the top of the page, then your Internet Explorer security setting are set too high. To set your security settings back to Microsoft's default, please read the following instructions carefully:
  • Go to Tools on the menu
  • Click Internet Options {a new window will open}
  • Select the Security tab
  • Locate the section 'Security Level for this zone'
  • Move the slider to Medium
  • Click OK

And you’re finished.


Technical & Summary Research Answers

A. How do I get started?

Getting started is easy: simply type the word you wish to search for in the textbox and hit Search. To search for multiple words, separate each by a comma.
Example: Diabetes, Type 2, Brother

A. What are the advanced options?

Clicking the Advanced button displays a host of optional settings that may seem overwhelming at first. Each however is explained here:

Inflections:- Ticking this option will extend the search to find other grammatically-related forms of the word(s) being sought.
Example: 'Have' will also produce ‘has’, ‘having’, ‘had’.


Case Sensitive:- Checking this box will only search for words having the same case as the search terms.
Example: Searching for the word 'Diabetes' in the sentence 'Diabetes is a factor of my life and living with diabetes isn't as bad as it was in 1923'. This will return the first 'Diabetes' but not the second as the second one starts with a lowercase 'd'


Proximity:- Typing a number into this box will limit the search to seeking only words that occur within the limit specified.  So it is possible to search for the word diabetes only when it is near to the phrase type 1.
Example: Using the search terms of 'diabetes, family' and setting a limit of 10. The phrase 'Everyone in my family seems to be prone to having diabetes' would not be found as the proximity of the word 'diabetes' to the word 'family' is 29 characters in this instance


Whole words Only:- Ticking this box means that the search will only return a complete version of the search term.
Example: Without this option ticked, a search for the word 'lie' in the sentence 'I went to lie by the pool, but first I applied some sun cream' produces 2 results. With the option selected only the first 'lie' will be found.


A. Can I use Wildcards to search with?

Wildcards such as * are not needed in the transcript and summary search: simply untick the 'Whole words' option under the advanced menu and the search will include partial words.
Example: see 'Whole words only' under What are the advanced options?

A. How do I do complex searches?

To perform a more complex search use the keywords AND,OR between words using brackets to group logical searches together.
Example: (Lie OR Lying OR make up OR deceive) AND (doctor OR nurse OR physician OR staff) will return matches only where one or more words occur in group one (Lie OR Lying OR make up OR deceive) and one or more words occur in group two (doctor OR nurse OR physician OR staff).

A. How do I search for a phrase?

To search for a phrase just type it in to the search terms.
Example: 'Type one Diabetes'

A. What is actually searched?

Every interview on the site has a full transcript; a summary of available interview tracks; a description of each interviewee, and written introductions to two short audio samples. All these items are included in the search facility. The captions of the images are also searched.



Database Research Questions


A. How do I build a query?
Subjects
Clicking the `Add Subject` button will extend your search criteria by adding additional Subject boxes. You may have up to 10.

Options
Some Option boxes have predefined options.
Example: The Gender Subject has two options: male or female .

If there are no Options you need to enter your own search criteria. If your queries contain numbers or dates you can use also use the boolean operators:
  •  
  • < for less than,
  •  <= for less than or equal to,
  •  => for greater than or equal to,
  •  = for equal to,
  •  >for greater than.
Example: The Year of Diagnosis Subject has no Option so if you enter =1927 you would return all interviews for people diagnosed in the year equal to 1927.

Returning the Results
Clicking the 'Run Query' button will return the relevant information in a new window. Clicking on any of the returned interviewees will take you straight to their individual pages. Clicking the column heading will sort the results by that column.


A. Why don't my Queries return anything?

You must allow pop-ups from Diabetes-Stories: to do this locate this icon , at the bottom right of your browser. Right click it and select 'Always allow from this site'
OR
You may have written a query that simply returns no records.

 

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