Qualitative Data in DDA – Coping with New Formats

One of the places data archives experience emerging new and challenging data formats is within qualitative research. New social technologies such as e.g. Facebook, debates on the internet and photographing on mobile phones produce data for qualitative research project. The Danish Data Archive (DDA) has a long standing ambition to archive qualitative data alongside with quantitative data. To welcome qualitative data we need knowledge about variations in data formats which we must be able to support and archive. The article will be based on a study of data formats and the use of CAQDAS – Computer assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software – in Danish, empirically based social science PhD thesis published in 2009. The study will be related to comparable studies carried out in national and international contexts as well as initiatives concerning archiving of qualitative data among our fellow data archives