About QDAP
Qualitative Data Analysis Program (QDAP)
Provide us with the raw data and your analytical vision. We will work with your research team to
craft a tailored methodology to code the text for key concepts. This allows you to focus on the
larger analytical questions while we quickly and reliably extract the data you tell us you need
to reach valid inferences.
Services
We offer professional support for key project management tasks such as:
- Focus groups and interviews
- Audio transcription
- Data preparation, cleaning, and management
- Codebook development and testing
- Online coding adjudication
- Rater reliability and validity reporting
- Results analysis and expression
QDAP will provide you with a team of professionally trained coders and a graduate student or UCSUR
staff project manager. We also work collaboratively with the qualitative research consultants at
ResearchTalk Inc., preparing researchers and their students to be more fluent in the project life
cycle using ATLAS.ti. ATLAS.ti is commercial software that supports project management, enables
multiple coders to collaborate on a single project, and generates output that facilitates analysis.
We offer a robust mix of existing and experimental tools, careful iterative techniques, and energetic,
participatory training sessions. Our goal is to work with researchers who are interested in generating
studies with valid observations and accurately reported inter-rater agreement rates. QDAP will lend
objectivity to your qualitative project. We will work closely with you to determine which coding
strategy can identify all the information you need to reach solid evidence-based inferences.
Stuart W. Shulman is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Sara Fine Institute in the
School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also the founder and
Director of the Qualitative Data Analysis Program (QDAP) at Pitt’s University Center for Social
and Urban Research, which is a fee-for-service coding lab working on projects funded by the
National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency, and other funding agencies. In 2007, became a Core Investigator in
Pitt’s Advanced Center for Interventions and Services Research Network Development Core. He
has been Principal Investigator and Project Director on several related NSF-funded research
projects focusing on electronic rulemaking, human language technologies, coding across the
disciplines, digital citizenship, and service-learning efforts in the United States. Dr. Shulman
is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Information Technology & Politics.
© 2007-2008 - Qualitative Data Analysis Program, University Center for Social and Urban Research
University of Pittsburgh
