Preamble

Quantitative research, especially in the form of survey data, has long been produced for wide and repeated re-use by those unconnected with the original study. Even though there are significant re-use issues that cause concern amongst quantitative researchers (such as the dangers of third parties being able to identify respondents ), on the whole the practice of re-use is well established in this field. This has not so far been the case with qualitative researchers.

The idea of making qualitative data-records available for subsequent re-use by others is currently, and possibly always will be, a source of some contention and controversy. In this section, we note some of the positive and negative arguments that have been advanced in relation to the question of depositing for re-use.

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