'QualiService': Implementation of a nationwide archive and data service center for qualitative social science interview data

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Frank Oliver Glöckner, since 3/2021; Professorin Dr. Betina Hollstein; Dr. Alexia Katsanidou; Maria Elisabeth Müller
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2018 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 398979974

While the archiving and secondary analysis of quantitative research data are already part of the social sciences for a long time, archiving and the supply of qualitative data are still at the beginning of its development. The project aims at the embedding of “QualiService” as nationwide archive and data service center for social science qualitative interview data. Thus social researchers in Germany are getting an access to a reliable contact point in order to archive subject independent interview data for the secondary use in respect of research and teaching. With regard to the implementation of the QualiService workflow data protection is of utmost significance as well as the security of qualitative data and the coordination with national and international institutions.Archiving will be organized together with the data archive PANGAEA – Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science and the State and University Library Bremen (SuUB). Furthermore a coordinated archiving and representation of mixed methods studies will be created together with GESIS – Leibniz Institut für Sozialwissenschaften. In order to guarantee the sustainability of QualiService and to be able to use respective synergy effects IT related components for the internal data will be managed together with the data archive PANGAEA. The project includes the implementation of a safe center for the confidential research data management and the implementation of long-term archiving, the development of an anonymization tool and its supply as open source, the implementation of a service center with online portal, data delivery service and help desk, the implementation of the overall organization with office, mandate and council, measurements of quality assurance and dissemination as well as exchange with the scientific community. The University of Bremen guarantees the sustainability of services regarding “QualiService” by ensuring the basic operation of the data service center.

• DFG Programme: Research data and software (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Dr. Michael Diepenbroek, until 3/2021