Moving data into and out of an institutional repository: Off the map and into the territory

Given the recent proliferation of institutional repositories, a key strategic question is how multiple institutions - repositories, archives, universities and others—can best work together to manage and preserve research data. In 2007, Green and Gutmann proposed how partnerships among social science researchers, institutional repositories and domain repositories should best work. This paper uses the Timescapes Archive—a new collection of qualitative longitudinal data— to examine the challenges of working across institutions in order to move data into and out of institutional repositories. The Timescapes Archive both tests and extends their framework by focusing on the specific case of qualitative longitudinal research and by highlighting researchers' roles across all phases of data preservation and sharing. Topics of metadata, ethical data sharing, and preservation are discussed in detail. What emerged from the work to date is the extremely complex nature of the coordination required among the agents; getting the timing right is both critical and difficult. Coordination among three agents is likely to be challenging under any circumstances and becomes more so when the trajectories of different life cycles, for research projects and for data sharing, are considered. Timescapes exposed some structural tensions that, although they can not be removed or eliminated, can be effectively managed

UK Data Archive Resources for Studying Older People and Ageing

There is a growing collection of data available on older people and ageing at the UK Data Archive. Collections include “On the Edge of Later Life”, a study that investigated the experiences of people in their 50’s, and “Older Men: Their Social Worlds and Healthy Lifestyles”, a study that investigated masculinity and ageing, with a focus on men living alone. Both qualitative and quantitative data are available. The UKDA wants to make data easily useable for research, teaching and policy purposes. To those ends, it provides access to data, additional resources and user support for those interested in using archived data. This paper describes the kinds of data and related materials that are available on ageing and later life and explains how they can be accessed and used

Sharing Qualitative and Qualitative Longitudinal Data in the UK: Archiving Strategies and Development

Over the past two decades significant developments have occurred in the archiving of qualitative data in the UK. The first national archive for qualitative resources, Qualidata, was established in 1994. Since that time further scientific reviews have supported the expansion of data resources for qualitative and qualitative longitudinal (QL) research in the UK and fuelled the development of a new ethos of data sharing and re-use among qualitative researchers. These have included the Timescapes Study and Archive, an initiative funded from 2007 to scale up QL research and create a specialist resource of QL data for sharing and re-use. These trends are part of a wider movement to enhance the status of research data in all their diverse forms, inculcate an ethos of data sharing, and develop infrastructure to facilitate data discovery and re-use. In this paper we trace the history of these developments and provide an overview of data policy initiatives that have set out to advance data sharing in the UK. The paper reveals a mixed infrastructure for qualitative and QL data resources in the UK, and explores the value of this, along with the implications for managing and co-ordinating resources across a complex network. The paper concludes with some suggestions for developing this mixed infrastructure to further support data sharing and re-use in the UK and beyond

Qualitative and Qualitative Longitudinal Resources in Europe

In April 2009 the UK Timescapes Initiative, in collaboration with the University of Bremen, organised a residential workshop to explore the nature of qualitative (Q) and qualitative longitudinal (QL) research and resources across Europe. The workshop was hosted by the Archive for Life Course Research (Archiv für Lebenslaufforschung, ALLF) at Bremen and funded by Timescapes with support from CESSDA (The Council of European Social Science Data Archives, Preparatory Phase Project). It was attended by archivists and researchers from 14 countries, including ‘transitional’ states such as Belarus and Lithuania. The broad aim of the workshop was to map existing infrastructures for qualitative and QL data archiving among the participating countries, including the extent of archiving and the ethos of data sharing and re-use in different national contexts. The group also explored strategies to develop infrastructure and to support qualitative and QL research and resources, including collaborative research across Europe and beyond

D2 Strategy for the Development of the Mentorship Programme

After three rounds of the CESSDA Mentorship Programme and with experiences from twenty mentorships, it is time to evaluate the programme and see how it can be further developed. The overall conclusion is that the programme has fulfilled its purpose but could benefit from more flexibility. Experience shows that circumstances can change quickly, from delayed decisions on institutionalising to pandemics, which requires an ability to quickly adjust established plans and reallocate resources. It would also be an advantage for the programme to have a wider range of experts to choose from when appointing mentors. Until now, the programme has only been open to CESSDA partners and new members. It would benefit from being open to all CESSDA SPs, regardless of their level of maturity. More mature SPs who want to develop new services could then seek support from, and collaboration with, colleagues with more expertise in the field. The new concept of the Mentorship programme is intended to be an asset to CESSDA and all its member and partner SPs by facilitating the exchange of general and specialised expertise. To achieve that, the programme needs a solid foundation and sustainability of mentorship within CESSDA ERIC

Strategies in teaching secondary analysis of qualitative data

Unlike for quantitative approaches, the published literature on secondary analysis of qualitative data is sparse. Among qualitative researchers there is neither a pervasive culture that exists to encourage the secondary analysis of data nor is there an extensive body of published sources that can help guide or instruct a researcher wishing to understand better the benefits and limitations of re-analysis. So where does the student or novice researcher turn for guidance and training? In this paper we set out ways in which ESDS Qualidata (University of Essex) has sought to facilitate both usage of archived qualitative data and methodological debate among the wider academic communities. We will present an overview of the current published literature and existing training provision for secondary analysis of qualitative data and describe the various approaches to support and training taken by our service. Finally, we will cover the preparation of potentially useful kinds of training materials (teaching datasets, user guides, commentary and exercises) that we believe will help support teachers and learners to incorporate secondary analysis methodology into everyday research culture and practice. © 2005 FQS

On the potentials and problems of secondary analysis. An introduction to the FQS special issue on secondary analysis of qualitative data

Archived qualitative data are a rich and unique yet often unexploited source of research material that can be reanalysed, reworked, and compared with contemporary data. This issue aims to debate the methodological, ethical and theoretical considerations relating to the secondary analysis of qualitative data and to provide exemplars of applications of the method. Many of the papers present actual case studies based on re-using qualitative data, while others build on the growing body of published evidence that provide arguments relating to the strengths and weaknesses of particular approaches to the secondary analysis of qualitative data. In the first section, the papers explore issues of context: how to best preserve context and challenges posed by decontextualised archived data. The second set of papers offers case studies of reuse in areas including class, medicine, history, and employment and consider reinterpretation of original findings, analytic strategies and ways of teaching secondary analysis data of qualitative data. In the final section the contributions cover more practical issues such as strategies for anonymisation and tools that address some of the deficiencies of current technological systems for handling qualitative data. Although new resources to support secondary analysis are starting to appear, the need for more still exists, in particular for high quality and transparent exemplars of re-analysis. We hope this issue of FQS goes some way toward filling this need. © 2005 FQS