Qualitative Data Repository 2015-2016

Syracuse University, Syracuse NY

Investigators

Abstract

The Qualitative Data Repository (QDR) launched in January 2014 at Syracuse University. QDR is the first general purpose venue in the United States for storing and sharing digital data generated or collected through qualitative and multi-method research in the social sciences. The repository curates, manages, preserves, and shares digital data, and also develops and disseminates standards and techniques for engaging in these practices. It also vigorously promotes the effective management, sharing, and reuse of qualitative data, and engagement in research transparency. QDR has made excellent progress, and will continue to advance, along five dimensions: (1) governance - developing internal management structures and policies and engaging with the broader data-management community; (2) technical capacity - securing the hardware to house, and developing the software to enable the deposit, indexing, search, and download of qualitative data; (3) content - soliciting and curating qualitative data projects for secondary analysis, to increase research transparency, and to enhance teaching; (4) ideational frameworks - developing the intellectual framework for, a language to talk about, techniques and practices to engage in, and guidance to facilitate data sharing and transparency in qualitative research; and (5) promulgation and persuasion - stimulating and participating in debate and dialogue to generate standards for sharing qualitative data, conducting secondary data analysis, evaluating empirical research, and teaching with data, and encouraging and teaching people to do so. Institutionalized repositories such as QDR produce multi-faceted benefits. First, they allow shared data to be more usable, discoverable, meaningful, citable, secure, durable, and broadly accessible, and they increase data visibility. Second, they also reduce data-collection redundancy, allow data to accumulate, and allow for secondary analysis, encouraging comparative study and new research. Third, by offering a platform for data-sharing, such repositories encourage transparent research; such research can be evaluated and replicated, encouraging methodological rigor and facilitating the continued development of research methods. The value QDR adds on each of these fronts is particularly important given the weak tradition of sharing the rich and heterogeneous data that qualitative social scientists generate, often through considerable effort. QDR is staffed by scholars with experience curating qualitative data, and offers a broad range of guidance, educational resources, and training focused on storing, sharing, and reusing such data. Qualitative political scientists are comfortable sharing their data with QDR as they perceive it to be a venue that is sympathetic to the goals and techniques of their research tradition. QDR enhances the data-management infrastructure in the United States, an infrastructure that underpins both research and teaching: it allows for their integration and thereby strengthens both. QDR has the potential to broaden the access of scholars from around the world to a wealth of qualitative social science data. In addition, by increasing researcher visibility, the repository encourages intellectual exchange and the formation and growth of epistemic communities, and serves as a platform for research networks and partnerships.