DDI Lifecycle and Qualitative Data: Development of a Formal Model

In December of 2011 the DDI Qualitative Working group began the formalization of a model describing qualitative studies and mixed-method studies, to complement the existing DDI - Lifecycle model describing quantitative studies. From a large number of collected use cases, it was determined that a very general model would be needed. While not yet in final form, this model borrows from several existing sources such as QuDEX and TEI, and aims to support the description of CAQDAS-documented multi-media data, text analysis, and more traditional interviews, texts, video, audio, and image collections. It will support collections and sub-collections, annotations and coding at the level of the files, and also within files of different types. Further, it will provide a rich toolset for linking between and among qualitative and quantitative data objects. The end result of this work will serve as the basis for the enhancement of DDI - Lifecycle in a future release.