Managing Qualitative Data Safely and Securely

Data management is a critical aspect of empirical research. Unfortunately, principles of good data management are rarely taught to social scientists in a systematic way as part of their methods training. As a result, researchers often do things in an ad hoc fashion and have to learn from their mistakes. The Qualitative Data Repository (QDR, www.qdr.org) presented a webinar on social science data management, with a special focus on keeping qualitative data safe and secure. The webinar will emphasize best practices with the aim of helping participants to save time and minimize frustration in their future research endeavors. We will cover the following topics: 1) The value of planning and Data Management Plans (DMPs) 2) Transparency and data documentation 3) Ethical, legal, and logistical challenges to sharing qualitative data and best practices to address them 4) Keeping data safe and secure. Attribution: Parts of this presentation are based on slides used in a course co-taught by personnel from QDR and the UK Data Service. All materials provided under a CC-BY license.