Conclusion to the ICQI Digital Tools Strand

Today's digital qualitative research tools go well beyond stand-alone software to include all variety of software and networked items. Some digital tools are comprehensive (such as qualitative data analysis software), others are make-shift, such as the use of wiki's or Facebook for the coduct of qualitative research. The topics, too, have expanded. Data mining, big data, social media, and qualitatie data archiving are only a few of the newer issues making their way into qualitative research discussions.

Concerned about the importance of these issues to qualitative research, we have organized the ICQI 2015 "Digital tools in Qualitative Research" technology strand. This session serves as an anchor for the activity, providing a broad-based understanding of the issues qualitative researchers face within the thickets of the digital forest and offering a means of contextualizing the various conference offerings in the area of digital tools.