DIY Academic Archiving: The Ethics, Politics and Practice of Making Open Qualitative Data with Omeka

Abstract

Archiving of qualitative research datasets is not new, but is still far from standard practice. While (in the UK), the UK Data Service (formerly as ESDS Qualidata) have led on archiving qualitative data, it was always clear that there was not capacity to archive all new datasets. While moves towards open data are now transforming the research landscape, there remain questions about unarchived or not yet archived datasets; as well as datasets which are not RCUK-funded and therefore may not fall under the remit of the UKDA. While institutional repositories are an important part of the emerging ecology of data archives, this paper argues the need for a diversity of archival possibilities and archival infrastructures, especially for qualitative data. 
 
 This paper reports on a case study – a project to create an open, online digital archive of a dataset from qualitative research. We offer a thick description of our own archival process, suggesting lessons learned, including around addressing ethical issues. We also outline some of the intended, and unintended, benefits, of archiving research data. We draw on our experience in a project led by Moore, and using her research data, with Dunne, Hanlon and Karels providing research assistance, to create the online archive, Clayoquot Lives (http://clayoquotlives.sps.ed.ac.uk), a collection of materials related to the 1993 Peace Camp in Clayoquot Sound, Canada, which was set up to protest the clear-cut logging of temperate rainforest. The archive includes 30 oral history interviews (audio and transcript), over 100 photos and other historical documents, which were the basis of Moore’s book, The Changing Nature of Eco/feminism: Telling Stories from Clayoquot Sound (2015). 
 
 This kind of DIY archiving is now made easier by some innovative open source software, Omeka, created by the Centre for New Media and History at George Mason University in the US (www.omeka.org), and which conforms to Dublin Core metadata standards. We suggest Omeka is particularly appealing for academic researchers because (i) it enables the creation and curation of ‘exhibits’, stories about the data, as well as the creation of sophisticated timelines, through the use of the plug-in Neatline, which enables quite complicated ‘geo-temporal’ stories to be told with and about data (Nowviskie et al 2013). We use the Clayoquot Lives archive to show the ways in which the archive has allowed (ii) new relationships between data to be visualised and made more immediate. (iii) While creating academic archives may have as a main intent possibilities of data sharing and data resuse by other researchers, online archives offer further opportunities. The juxtaposition of exhibits and archival stories alongside the possibility of exploring full transcripts offers rich resources for teachers and students, either for academics to use in teaching their own data, or for students seeking more textured accounts of the shift from interview to transcript to analysis and write up. (iv) Online archives also offer another opportunity for engagement with communities and interested publics, who may even have been involved in the original research. (v) Finally, the process of creating an online archive offers original researchers an engaging interface for reworking their own relationship with and understanding of the data. 
 
 A video of this presentation can be viewed at https://media.ed.ac.uk/media/0_bpqm3pzm