Raven’s Eye is fundamentally powered by Quantitative Phenomenology. Quantitative Phenomenology, is as we describe in the previous sections of these Methodological Foundations, a hybrid approach that involves aspects of both quantitative and qualitative data analytic methods.

As noted in Vakoch et al. (2013), Quantitative Phenomenology was developed out of practical necessity over the course of late fall of 2009 and early spring of 2010. After first applying Quantitative Phenomenology to the identification of overt themes in a 68-nation sample of natural language messages in Vakoch et al. (2010, April), Lower et al. (2010, 2011) then demonstrated Quantitative Phenomenology’s abilities to identify variation in themes implied by, and projected into, the same natural language sample. Next, Vakoch et al. (2010, September) demonstrated the ability to identify and analyze response-based variables in the existing multinational sample.

In a different sample, but using the same basic question as the previously cited studies, Vakoch et al. (2011) utilized Quantitative Phenomenology to analyze developmental, cross-cultural, and cross-linguistic variation in natural language responses from school children in Mexico and the United States. This is also the first work to report on progress on the development of Raven’s Eye’s precursor website.

Timm et al. (2011) includes a demonstration of the combined use of both content themes and meta-analytic information revealed by Quantitative Phenomenology to ascertain effective online science communication. Vakoch et al. (2012) then utilize the results of their 2011 study (Vakoch et al., 2011) as a demonstration of cross-disciplinary research. Finally, Vakoch et al. (2013) includes the most descriptive summary of the original procedures involved in Quantitative Phenomenology. This final work provides an example of concurrent validation for Quantitative Phenomenology, while further describing theme construction and message generation procedures, and processes for examining thematic variation according to multiple characteristics.

The early versions of Quantitative Phenomenology described in the aforementioned publications and presentations required researchers to rely on several separate software programs. Each of these software programs were variously prepared to accommodate the needs of researchers and phenomena, and each required various amounts of money, time, expertise, and hardware for their effective use. Our founders soon, therefore, began the process of developing a unified and automated version of Quantitative Phenomenology, which is now known as Raven’s Eye.

We began developing a prototype of Raven’s Eye during the summer and fall of 2010. In June 2011, we launched the online precursor to Raven’s Eye, at http://qpscience.com. Over the next three years, we added functionality and expanded the options available to researchers. During this time, as we automated portions of Quantitative Phenomenology, we adapted the terms we use to describe each stage in the process. Beta testing proceeded through mid 2014, when it became apparent that Raven’s Eye was ready for commercial release. On January 29th, 2015, version 1.0 of Raven’s Eye was released to the public.