Ann Lewins Qualitative Data Analysis Services (QDAS)

For much of her working life Ann Lewins was not an academic. She held a commission in the Royal Air Force as an Air Traffic Controller and later ran a growing sports business with her husband until his death in 1988.  In 1992, at the age of 45, having just gained a first class honours  degree in Modern History & Politics, she started postgraduate study. Two years later she was appointed to a sole, part-time Research post at the University of Surrey with the newly formed CAQDAS   Networking Project (Computer Assisted Qualitative AnalysiS). The project, conceived by Nigel Fielding and Ray Lee was born out of a ground-breaking international Research Methods conference convened at Surrey in 1989, a key moment in the coalescing of a new awareness of a small range of early qualitative data analysis software programs. Ann set up online support resources and began hosting a vigorous program of seminars and training workshops to help researchers know the different software programs available and  to teach their use. By 2000, Ann, together with Christina Silver had ensured that the CAQDAS Networking Project was reaching thousands of researchers who visited Surrey for support. Their specialist joint initiative, QDAS (Qualitative Data Analysis Services), was created  to widen customised teaching and project support on-site at many other universities and research institutions worldwide.