"CDC EZ-Text" is a software program developed to assist researchers create, manage, and analyze semi-structured qualitative databases. Researchers can design a series of data entry templates tailored to their questionnaire. These questionnaires are usually administered during face-to-face interviews with a sample of respondents. A response to a question may be entered into EZ-Text either as a verbatim transcript (e.g., from a tape recording), or a summary generated from the interviewer's notes. Data from respondents can be typed directly into the templates or copied from word processor documents. Following data entry, investigators can interactively create on-line codebooks, apply codes to specific response passages, develop case studies, conduct database searches to identify text passages that meet user-specified conditions, and export data in a wide array of formats for further analysis with other qualitative or statistical analysis software programs. Project managers can merge data files generated by different interviewers for combined cross-site analyses. The ability to export and import the codebook helps to coordinate the efforts of multiple coders simultaneously working with copies of the same database file.

Copies of the EZ-Text software and user documentation can be downloaded free of charge from this web site.

If you have further questions or problems, please send an email message to: eztext@cdc.gov