This Programme ended in September 2006
What is the Qualitative Archiving and Data Sharing Demonstrator Scheme?
QUADS was the ESRC Qualitative Archiving and Data Sharing Scheme, which ran from April 2005 to October 2006. The aim of the scheme was to develop and promote innovative methodological approaches to the archiving, sharing, re-use and secondary analysis of qualitative research and data. A range of new models for increasing access to qualitative data resources, and for extending the reach and impact of qualitative studies were explored. The scheme also aimed to disseminate good practice in qualitative data sharing and research archiving. This was part of the ESRC's initiative to increase the UK resource of highly skilled researchers, and to fully exploit the distinctive potential offered by qualitative research and data.
About the Qualitative Archiving and Data Sharing Demonstrator Scheme
QUADS was a small initiative (some £500,000 over 18 months) and was dedicated to the mission of learning more about sharing, representation, and re-use of qualitative data, in all of its disparate shapes and forms.
Five small exploratory projects were funded together with a co-ordination role. The co-ordination team, based at ESDS Qualidata, were charged with the task of providing a pivotal role in fostering communication and understanding between the following five demonstrator projects:
Four common challenges were identified for the QUADS scheme. These were: defining and capturing data context; audio-visual archiving; consent, confidentiality and IPR; and web and metadata standards.
- Capturing degrees of context enables informed re-use of data. QUADS devised and recommended a minimum set of contextual constructs that would be necessary to document a collection of qualitative data to enable informed secondary use. It also edited and contributed to a volume of the free online journal Methodological Innovations, on 'Making qualitative data more re-usable'
- The archiving and sharing of digital audio-visual data from qualitative research is typically viewed as a challenge, in both ethical and technical terms. As many of the QUADS projects were handling these kinds of data, the scheme provided a welcomed opportunity to share expertise on presenting and re-using such sources.
- Consent, confidentiality and copyright perhaps provide the greatest challenges for re-using qualitative data. While ESDS Qualidata maintains up-to-date detailed information on the website, many of the QUADS projects encountered specific consent and copyright issues. Each project confronted ethics in a unique way by way of the samples under study and the kinds of data involved. Each project affords a unique case study relating to ethics that can be used in the future.
- In order to approach primary data now, and in future years, we need that data to be accurately, richly and contextually described. And in turn, re-presentation of original data, methods and analytic interpretation and their interweaving requires agreed and exemplary standards and procedures. We must also anticipate emerging innovations in qualitative methods, including new data forms, sources, possibilities for research archiving and data mining and the potential for increased participation and access. The projects all examined new ways of presenting data, some utilising state-of-the-art technical approaches, tools and standards, eg XML
How to access this resource
Papers, tools and training materials arising from the projects are available on the QUADS website.
Further information
QUADS, ESDS Qualidata, University of Essex, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ
tel: +44 (0)1206 872145
fax: +44 (0)1206 872003
email: corti@essex.ac.uk
web: http://quads.esds.ac.uk/
ESRC contact: victoria.crossley@esrc.ac.uk Telephone: 01793 413061
Download QUADS information in PDF format (193Kb)