esds qualidata and quads coordination louise corti online resources day 15 november 2005, london
TRANSCRIPT
ESDS Qualidata and QUADS Coordination
Louise Corti
Online Resources Day15 November 2005, London
Metadata matters
• Sharing and archiving qualitative data
ESRC ESDS Qualidata New ESRC QUADS initiative Common issues arising
• Background to the day
ESDS Qualidata
• function of the ESRC/JISC Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS)
• specialist service led by the UK Data Archive at the University of Essex
• acquires, provides access to, and support for, a range of qualitative datasets on a national scale
• responsible for enhancing qualitative data and documentation
• provides information and training resources for re-analysing qualitative data
ESDS Qualidata
• resource discovery – web catalogue of qualitative data collections
• catalogued to international standards with quality control
• search and browse functionality - focussed searches and browse
• instant access to data collections via download or pointer to source at location
Online services
• users demanding more powerful and relevant searches demanded required as technology improves
– eg Google – image searching, news
• users want instant access to the resource on finding resource
– e.g the Music Download Charts
• search and browse data content online
• ESDS Qualidata Online developed in 2000 to meet these needs
Online access
• our system offers only basic functionality
• but is based on a common standard (XML)
• currently only deals with text
• but model extends to audio, video and any potentially any object
• and can enable linking of data and resources
• hear more today about challenges of about representing qualitative data collections
QUADS Aims
• Demonstrator Scheme for Qualitative Archiving and Data Sharing
• 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
• main aim to develop and promote innovative methodological approaches to and new models for the archiving, sharing, re-use and secondary analysis of qualitative research and data
• aim to disseminate good practice in qualitative data sharing and research archiving
QUADS Objectives
• develop new models of qualitative research archiving and data sharing which tackle in innovative ways the epistemological, ethical, methodological and practical challenges raised by the re-use and re-analysis of qualitative material, and which explore ways of improving the quality of contextual information
• models may be of temporary, local or thematic archiving for example, which should complement the ESDS Qualidata approach, and of new or existing research collaborations - locally, nationally or internationally
• draw primarily on existing qualitative research and data sets of a range of types. May also involve a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches
• encourage researchers to explore the use of stored and shared video, visual and audio data sets
• promote understanding of the potential benefits and challenges of information and communication and e-science technologies in relation to media shifts and the changing nature of qualitative research
QUADS Objectives
QUADS Objectives
• explore and extend the relationship between qualitative data producers, users and re-users and to demonstrate innovative and effective practice in these domains
• encourage the involvement of non-academic users and potential users of qualitative methods in opportunities to be methodologically innovative and to widen understanding in non-academic communities of the value and uses of qualitative data
QUADS Objectives
• promote innovative ways of speeding the process of adoption of methodological advances in relation to qualitative research archiving, data sharing, re-use and re-analysis, particularly in the transfer of experience between researchers operating in different substantive research areas and national research communities, and in the training of new researchers
• encourage networking and interchange
Awards£500,000 over 18 months: 6 awards – 5 demonstrators + coordination
• Representing Context in a Research Archive of Educational Evaluation Studies– P. Carmichael, M. James, J. Elliot and D. Bridges (Cambridge & UEA)
• Smart Qualitative Data: Methods and Community Tools for Data Mark-Up (SQUAD) L. Corti and C. Grover (Essex & Edinburgh)
• Negotiating the Long View: Archiving, Representing and Sharing a Qualitative Longitudinal Resource– S. Henderson, J. Holland and R. Thomson (South Bank)
• Methodological issues in qualitative data sharing and archiving– A. Coffey, B. Dicks and M. Williams (Cardiff)
• Collating and Preserving Primary Material on the Northern Ireland Conflict– R. Miller and M. Melaugh (Queen's & Ulster)
• QUADS Coordination – L.Corti (Essex)
Relationship to ESDS Qualidata
• ESDS Qualidata, through the UKDA, currently provides the ESRC RRB strategy for archiving, accessing and supporting users of qualitative research data
• QUADS’ outputs and workable models will link into and inform ESDS Qualidata’s forward-thinking strategy and help set future priorities
• relatively small budget, small team, with limited funding
• not funded to do R&D work within current budget
• focus on getting whole or partial (highlights) collections digitised and web-accessible
• strong emphasis on developing community standards for describing data/metadata, but not well-resourced to do this
• limited focus on helping provide better context to inform re-use
Common ground & areas of synergy
• web and metadata standards and compliance
• defining and capturing context in qualitative research
• audio-visual archiving and presentation
• consent, confidentiality and IPR
• Re: standards - working with e-social science Oxford Text Archive Computer scientists in NLP/ JISC Centre for Text
Mining International data archiving communities National Centre for Research Methods Other research groups using standards