Summary and Setup
This lesson familiarizes learners with the application of open science principles to qualitative research, with a focus on documents or transcribed text in a variety of data formats. Learners will practice working with secondary qualitative data from the Qualitative Data Repository (QDR) in the free software Taguette and discuss the options and limitations for open research with proprietary qualitative analysis packages, including options for sharing both source data and coded analysis projects.
Prerequisites
Learners should understand some basic principles of open science prior to starting the workshop. A good place to start is this overview from Jonny Coates, part of a series of lightning talks for those interested in learning more about specific open science topics.
It is helpful, but not required, to be familiar with basic principles and practices in qualitative research, such as open and thematic coding.
No experience with qualitative software or QDR is necessary.
We will annotate, analyze, and prepare to archive interview transcripts from a qualitative study of abortion reporting, focused on how participants decide whether to allow sharing data they provide on sensitive topics. Neither the original study nor this lesson proposes to draw conclusions on the political, legal, or moral aspects of abortion.
The original study concluded that not all participants fully understood the concept of data sharing and thus may not be able to give fully informed consent.
In the lesson, we will use the data to explore to what extent concerns identified about “fully informed consent” are also relevant to research on less sensitive topics. To do so, we will reanalyze a portion of the data, compare our coding to the original study’s coding, and use both traditional and data analytic methods to draw a tentative conclusion before packaging our own work to archive and share for other researchers.
In this workshop, we will practice reusing qualitative data with the software Taguette and a collection of interviews about data reuse published online. Please follow the steps below before the workshop to set up your computer.
Data Sets
The data we will use is available from the Qualitative Data Repository (QDR) and requires creating a free QDR account. You are welcome to create an account before the workshops, but we will walk through the process of setting up an account and downloading the data during the workshop.
Software Setup
We will use the free Coding and Qualitative Data Analysis software Taguette throughout the workshop. When possible, Taguette should be set up to run on your computer by following the latest Windows, Mac, or Linux instructions.
When running Taguette, initially a command line window will open. This is a window, usually with a black background. As Taguette runs, lines of text will appear in the command line window. Then the Taguette interface will open in your default web browser. You do not need to interact with the command line window. Leave it open in the background, and work on projects in your web browser.
If you are unable to install Taguette on your own computer, a free cloud version is also available from the developers, after creating a login.
We will demonstrate using a local version of Taguette, but the cloud interface looks and functions identically except for the addition of an “Account” menu at the top right, the lack of offline functionality, and the ability to share collaborative projects with others without self-hosting.