History

QualPage has a history of over 20 years. Read on…

QualPage was originally designed by Judy Norris, an associate professor of nursing at the University of Alberta in Canada, as a private repository of information for graduate students learning about qualitative data analysis software (QDAS). Originally a Gopher site, it evolved into a Web page around 1994. Judy Norris had been giving guest lectures about QDAS in qualitative research courses at a time when the software developers began to develop Websites. Because the QDAS field was changing so rapidly, her class handout required constant revision. The advent of the Website allowed her to link to the QDAS sites along with other resources.

In January 1995, Judy discovered that other sites were linking QualPage. She added some sections and announced the page on some of the qualitative discussion forums and in a qualitative research journal (Norris, 1995). Using a barn raising metaphor, her hope was that QualPage would be a place where qualitative folks with all their diverse interests and expertise would contribute resources toward a useful collection. She had in mind Howard Rheingold’s notion of an online gift economy where a free exchange of information and expertise in a spirit of reciprocity is a worthwhile investment of energy, “a marriage of altruism and self-interest” (1993, p. 58). Happily, people from many qualitative persuasions continued to send her URLs and suggestions. QualPage became a collection of sites that linked the work of others. When Judy retired in 2003, the website was taken over by Judith Preissle, a professor in the Qualitative Research program at the University of Georgia, Athens. Jude Preissle continued to maintain the website until 2013 when she retired.

The website is now maintained by Kathy Roulston, a professor in the Qualitative Research program at the University of Georgia.

References

Norris, J. (1995). You’re invited to a barn raising: Building resources on the Internet for qualitative researchers. Qualitative Health Research , 5(3), 400-402.

Rheingold, H. (1993). The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier . Reading,MA: Addison-Wesley.