Case Studies

Being a doctor: a sociological analysis, 2005–2006

Case study illustrating the process of archiving research data with the UK Data Service and its subsequent reuse. It presents the experiences of the data depositor in sharing qualitative data, and shows how these data have been used in a taught module for third year sociology students.

  • How was the researcher’s duty of care to participants addressed when archiving these data?
  • In using these archived qualitative data in teaching, how does the lecturer address the anxiety of students about secondary analysis of qualitative data?

Preparing qualitative research data for sharing: some lessons

A teaching dataset that takes the learner through some lessons in research data management and demonstrates how a qualitative collection can be processed to a high standard, so that it becomes suitable for sharing and/or archiving. Some of the key aspects are documenting the data and providing contextual information for future users, formatting data in a consistent manner, storing the data securely, ensuring to have the legal and ethical rights to share the research data, and finally ensuring that there are strategies to manage the confidentiality of the data collected. This dataset shows that although good data management practice was not initially implemented perfectly in this project, it was possible to retrospectively clean the qualitative dataset, so that it was suitable for archiving.

  • What are key steps to take when making a collection of qualitative data ready for reuse by other researchers?
  • Why is context important in qualitative research?