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.
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General
Answers |
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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.
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Technical
Answers |
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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.
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Technical
& Summary Research Answers |
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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.
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Database
Research Questions |
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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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