International data service providers/resources

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.

National data archives and initiatives for the acquisition, preservation and dissemination of qualitative data

In the interests of collaboration, ESDS Qualidata seeks to monitor the progress of initiatives around the world that aim to provide access to qualitative data resources. The table on the International resources: progress web page sets out the main areas of activity and points of contact.

Only one national data archive has formally started to acquire qualitative data:

Finland

The Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD) has a number of qualitative collections.

Others have been conducting feasibility studies, for example:

Northern Ireland

The Northern Ireland Qualitative Archive (NIQA) is at Queens University. The umbrella NI Social and Political Archive (ARK) is currently working on a new project to develop a Qualitative Archive based on Northern Ireland reflecting social and political changes and developments over the years. ARK has developed a pilot archive of in-depth interviews with older people on attitudes to ageing and ageism and is collating information about qualitative material covering the 35 year span of 'the Troubles' in NI (content, availability, recording format etc.) into a single catalogue.

Germany

The Life-Course Archive (ALLF) at the University of Bremen holds a collection of interview data of the Special Collaborative Centre 186 'Status Passages and Risks in the Life Course', has been co-operating with the Central Archive for Empirical Social Research (ZA) in Cologne on a feasibility study for a service infrastructure for qualitative research in Germany, examining the demands made by the scientific community on such an institution.

France

In November 2005 two research teams, PACTE-CIDSP (CNRS/University of Grenoble) and GRETS (EDF R&D) 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.

Switzerland

The Swiss Information and Data Archive Service for the Social Sciences (SIDOS), together with a number of key research centres in Switzerland, investigated the feasibility of a centre of competence for qualitative research in 2002.

International Activities

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.

At the 2005, International Social Science Methodology Connference 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).

Staff from archives who are interested in qualitative data meet on an annual basis at the International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology (IASSIST) conference.

ESDS Qualidata encourages all international data archives involved in collecting and providing access to qualitative data to join IASSIST as it can provide a number of benefits for the qualitative data servicing community, including:

• providing a forum for professionals involved in the practice of preserving and providing access to qualitative data
• promoting the preservation, dissemination and re-use of qualitative data
• fostering the exchange of qualitative data and collaborative working
• enabling both individuals and organisations wanting to set up new initiatives to learn, adapt and share their knowledge about working practices
• developing and disseminating sets of best practice guidelines and recommendations covering a range of key issues relating to the preservation, dissemination and re-use of qualitative data including: research project management; confidentiality and copyright; methods of transcription; technical and recording issues; anonymisation; digitisation and indexing of paper-based research materials
• developing methods of computer-assisted archiving of qualitative data
• developing and refining standards for documenting a wide range of qualitative data (metadata)