Extensible Markup Language and Qualitative Data Analysis

Authors

  • Patrick Carmichael University of Reading

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-3.2.852

Keywords:

CAQDAS, computer-aided qualitative data analysis, XML, WWW, Internet, networking, client-server, information architecture, metadata

Abstract

The increasing popularity of Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the availability of software capable of reading and editing XML documents present opportunities for Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) facilities to be incorporated into "groupware" applications such as collaborative workspaces and "document bases", and to be made available across networks both within organisations and across the Internet. Collaborative systems have, in the past, characteristically, been geared to retrieve and present whole documents, and while annotation and discussion of documents has been possible within such systems, the "pencil-level" analysis commonplace in CAQDAS (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software) has been lacking. XML, when combined with a scripting language such as Perl, can be used to offer basic QDA functionality—retrieval by text and codes, attachment of memos to text fragments, and the generation of summary data—via a standard web-browser. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0202134

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Author Biography

Patrick Carmichael, University of Reading

Dr Patrick CARMICHAEL is a lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Reading, UK, where he develops and evaluates network technologies for use in education and other civil society projects He provides IT support to Survivors' Fund, a UK-based NGO supporting survivors of genocide in Rwanda, and has contributed a chapter, Information Interventions, Media Development and the Internet, to "Forging Peace: Information Intervention, Media and Conflict" edited by Monroe Price and Mark Thompson (EUP, 2002). He is also a member of "Learning how to Learn", a four-year Economic and Social Research Council (UK) Project which involves research into the representation of practitioner knowledge across electronic networks.

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Published

2002-05-31

How to Cite

Carmichael, P. (2002). Extensible Markup Language and Qualitative Data Analysis. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 3(2). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-3.2.852