Project Summary

This is a demonstrator project funded under the ESRC Qualitative Data Archiving and Dissemination Scheme (QUADS). It will explore methodological and technical solutions for exposing digital qualitative data to make them fully shareable and exploitable.

First, the project deals with specifying and testing non-proprietary means of storing and marking-up data using universal (XML) standards and technologies, and proposes an XML community standard (schema) that will be applicable to most qualitative data.

The second strand investigates optimal requirements for contextualising research data (e.g. interview setting or interviewer characteristics), aiming to develop standards for data documentation and ways of capturing this information.

The third strand aims to use natural language processing technology to develop and implement user-friendly tools for semi-automating processes to prepare qualitative data for both traditional digital archiving and to enable more adventurous collaborative research and e-science type exploitation, such as linking multiple data and information sources.

The project will further research tools for publishing (e.g. for web interrogation) and archiving enriched marked-up data and associated research materials.