International data services
ESDS Qualidata is part of a global network of social science data providers. The European professional organisation
for these services is the
Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA). This network was established to promote co-operation
on key archival strategies, procedures and technologies between disparate data services for the social sciences. IASSIST the
International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology is an international organization of professionals working in, and with, information technology
and data services to support research and teaching in the social sciences. Its 300 members are from a variety of workplaces, including data archives, statistical agencies,
research centers, libraries, academic departments, government departments, and non-profit organizations.
Below are some pointers to other archives in Europe and the world who are working on archiving qualitative data.
Europe
Austria
WISDOM, the Wiener Institute for Social Science Data Documentation and Methods, was founded in 1985, and is supported by the Austrian
Ministry of Science and Research. WISDOM holds major national and international public opinion surveys and in 2007, began to extend the scope of acquired data to also include
qualitative datasets and datasets with mixed method designs. A feasibility study was conducted, followed by a phase of extensive data acquisition. In 2010, the Austrian Ministry
for Science and Research signed the commitment to support the quantitative and qualitative archive on a long-term basis.
Czech Republic
The Czech Sociological Data Archive (SDA), the national survey archive, works closely with the the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, to look at archiving qualitative data.
Denmark
The Danish Data Archive (DDA) is the national social science data archive. In 2005, DDA completed feasibility work on acquiring qualitative data, but no data have yet been acquired.
Finland
The Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD) has been collecting qualitative data for some years and holds a number of qualitative collections.
France
In summer 2011, France received funding to build a Qualitative Data Bank to complement the national survey archive, Reseau Quetelet, the French Data Archive for Social Sciences. The partners for the new project are:
the Center for Socio-Political Data (CDSP) - experienced in archiving quantitative data and a member of CESSDA; the Human and Social Sciences group of EDF R&D, already accomplished in the archiving and secondary analysis of their own qualitative data; and a feasibility study financed by ADONIS/CNRS and Sciences Po, which has established an innovative prototype for archiving qualitative research
in the social sciences.
Earlier work to inspire qualitative archiving in France was undertaken in 2005 by two research teams, PACTE-CIDSP (CNRS/University of Grenoble) and GRETS EDF organised an international Symposium on Analysis of Qualitative Research. Utopia and Perspectives. The aim of the event was to reflect on the status of secondary analysis of interviews from
a methodological and epistemological point of view and to consider a national data archive for France.
Germany
Following many years of feasibility studies, we welcome a new stream of funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), enabling Germany to initiate a data service for qualitative data, QualiService.
The project started on 1 September 2011. The final report can be viewed. The archive is based on works from the
Life-Course Archive (ALLF) at the University of Bremen who hold a collection of interview data of the Special Collaborative Centre 186 'Status Passages and Risks in the Life Course'. In cooperation with
the GESIS Data Archive for the Social Sciences in Cologne a feasibility study on a centralised qualitative data service
for Germnay was undertaken in 2008.
Hungary
The Oral History Archive (OHA) of the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution preserves and processes the recollections of more than a thousand witnesses recounting Hungary’s communist period, including the 1956 revolution.
Ireland
The Irish Qualitative Data Archive (IQDA) is based at NUI Maynooth, and is a central access point for qualitative social science data - interviews, pictures and other non-numerical material - providing online access to all new qualitative data.
It is a complementary service to the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA), Ireland’s leading centre for quantitative data acquisition, preservation, and dissemination.
Lithuania
The Lithuanian Data Archive for Social Sciences and Humanities (LiDA) are investigating the archiving of qualitative data in their national survey archive.
Northern Ireland
The Northern Ireland Qualitative Archive (NIQA) is based at Queens University and holds two main collections of qualitative data - in-depth interviews with older people on attitudes to ageing and ageism and the archive on conflict.
Poland
The Institute of Sociology and Philosophy's Qualitative Data Archive, Archiwum Danych Jakościowych (ADJ) was founded in 2004 , but still exists at its very initial stage.
There is a collection of 200 interviews (collected in 1989) and data collected from 1970-1980.
Slovenia
The national data archive, Archiv Druzboslvnih Podatkov (ADP) founded in 1997 by the Slovene Ministry of Education, Science and Sports as a specialised social
science information centre is considering the acquisition of qualitative data.
Switzerland
The DARIS (Data and Research Information Services) based at the Swiss Foundation for Research in Social Sciences (FORS) from 2011 has started to archive qualitative data produced by researchers in Switzerland.
In 2002, the orginal Swiss data service, SIDOS, together with a number of key research centres in Switzerland, investigated the feasibility of a centre of competence for qualitative research and produced a series of publications relating to archiving and sharing data in Switzerland.
United kingdom
ESDS Qualidata was set up in 1994 as Qualidata by the ESRC and is now a specialist service of the ESDS led by the UK Data Archive. It supports data creators and users and has some 350 qualitative data collections available to download.
International Archives
Australia
ADA Qualitative is part of the Australian Data Archive (ADA) and provdies specialist data archiving and access services to qualitative researchers. Launched in 2010, by September 2011 it has five qualitative collections available.
United States
The Henry A. Murray Research Archive in the U.S., holding both qualitative and quantitative data, has been running since 1976.
International networking activities
2000
In October 2000, Qualidata organised the first international stream of sessions on Preserving and Re-using Qualitative Data for Social
Research at the 2000 International Social Science Methodology Conference. Papers from fifteen presentations are published in a special
edition of the online journal,
Forum: Qualitative Social Research (FQS), as Text - Archive - Re-Analysis FQS 1(3), December 2000, edited by Louise Corti,
Susann Kluge, Katja Mruck and Diane Opitz.
2005
At the 2005, International Social Science Methodology Conference in Amsterdam, ESDS Qualidata held a session dedicated to re-using data.
Papers from these presentations and further contributions on the topic can be found in an FQS Special Issue on
Analysis of Qualitative Data: Corti, L., Witzel, A. and Bishop, L. (2005, January).
2009
A joint meeting with ESRC Timescapes, funded by CESSDA entitled Qualitative Longitudinal Research and Qualitative Resources in Europe: Mapping the Field and Exploring Strategies for Development was held in 2010. CESSDA meetings and the IASSIST annual conference continue to be the place to network for qualitative archiving activities.
2010
A working group dedicated to working on metadata standards for qualitative data was set up in 2010 under the auspices of the DDI Committee. A 3 day meeting on Qualitative Data and DDI is being held in Gotheburg from 7-9 December 2011.
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