Hi Duncan,

Yes, the Qualitative Data Exchange (QuDEx) interchange standard (http://data-archive.ac.uk/create-manage/projects/qudex ) is a fully developed and documented exchange schema that is used in production for the UK Service’s QualiBank. While this online qualitative data system only uses part of QuDEx for object level description (e.g. categories and document memos and object relationships), the schema allows capture of all kinds of annotation of documents (in the broader sense) using acknowledged methods of XML pointer representation).

The schema could be used as a software neutral format, but clearly would rely on import/export facilities from software vendors. It is difficult to map interchangeability as the back-ends of CAQDAS softwares would need to be exposed, made explicit or published, and often they are not.

We are holders of the schema, and are happy to answer further question about its potential use. As data archivists, we believe that the sooner we have spss.por and stat transfer type equivalents the better.

Best wishes,

Louise

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Louise Corti

Director, Collections Development and Producer Relations

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T +44(0) 1206 872145

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UK Data Service

UK Data Archive

University of Essex

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New book: Corti, L., Van den Eynden, V., Bishop, L and Woollard, M. Managing and Sharing Research Data: A Guide to Good Practice. Sage Publications Ltd. http://www.uk.sagepub.com/books/9781446267264

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From: qual-software [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Duncan Branley
Sent: 12 May 2014 14:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Online storage woes and backups
Importance: High

An interesting article about the problems Dedoose had last Tuesday and is still working on (good luck!) - and some balanced comments about the risks of local storage as well.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/hazards-of-the-cloud-data-storage-services-crash-sets-back-researchers/52571

The key messages seems to be an old one: backup. We run an NVivo server here and I've not been getting users to make separate backups. I'll have to rectify that!

But if your backup becomes corrupt and you don't realise until too late, it would be reassuring to have a substantial part of your intellectual labour (coding mainly) preserved in a non-proprietary format. Does anyone have a table summarising the interchangeability of coding between CAQDAS? I know there were efforts several years ago to get a common standard, but have not kept up with it alas. There's Louise Corti's article:

Corti, Louise & Gregory, Arofan (2011). CAQDAS Comparability. What about CAQDAS Data Exchange? [42 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1), Art. 35, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1101352.

This addresses the bigger issue of data preservation in archives, but the same thinking can be useful for protecting your work against software or storage malfunction or needing to move to a different software package.

I've only found ATLAS.ti claiming this: http://www.atlasti.com/universalexport.html

ATLAS.ti: Universal Data Export

ATLAS.ti understands the necessity to re-use research data for processing and publication in other applications. It therefore sports the widest and most flexible range of export and reporting facilities anywhere.